OKEMOS - The Okemos girls’ varsity water polo knocked off Troy, 15-2, on April 20, and improved to 4-0 in district play.

The first period, already with a splash of goals, give Okemos the lead.

Number eight finds the open spot twice and gets it in the net.

Troy is able to score one in the first period, but remains scoreless in the second, where Okemos No. 14 gets two.

Number 14 gets one from the side.

The other is a pass from behind and she finds herself wide open right in front of the goal; one more for Okemos.

Halftime creeps up, with the Chiefs’ goalie wasting time to keep the 15-2 lead.

As of March 30, the Chiefs were ranked No. 1 in the MWPA Coaches Poll.

The Chiefs have been a top team in the state for over 10 years, and head coach Matthew Latham emphasized the need to teach girls to play as a team.

“I like to tell them that an assist counts as two points and a goal count s as one, so that way, coaches you know, we want to make sure everyone is a threat and can shoot, otherwise other teams are gonna focus on just two to three kids,” Latham said.
Latham said the team is very young, so this is an opportunity for the older kids to teach the younger ones.

“We really, really, really try to stress that the ball gets spread around, even though we have a couple of kids that tend to be our leading scorers, they really try to look and make sure everyone is involved, which is great to see,” he said.

After halftime, Troy United – a team combined of both Troy High School and Troy Athens High School – tightened up their defense, not allowing any goals by Okemos.

The third period remained scoreless, with a good matchup of both teams and a very competitive quarter.

Troy kept the energy up in the fourth, keeping the Chiefs scoreless for another eight minutes.

Troy was able to score one more, but couldn’t catch up
Okemos’ 15 goals.

Game over, 15-2.

Looking forward, Okemos will continue to practice to keep the district winning streak.

“We're just going to keep working hard, I mean there's no easy way about it, so we practice hard and we try to make sure that translates over to the games, and that's really the only way to do it,” Latham said.

After playing Troy, Okemos topped Lake Orion, 17-1, and remain 5-0 in district play.

Over the weekend, they had a perfect record of 4-0, beating East Grand Rapids, 13-1, Grand Blanc, 15-0, Saline, 11-6, and Grover, 15-5.

The Chiefs will face Haslett tonight at 6 p.m. at home.