PASADENA, Calif. — Caltech Women's Water Polo competed in its final game of the season on Saturday morning as they hosted the No. 3 University of La Verne Leopards at Braun Pool. The Beavers honored their lone senior Amanda Piyapanee with a ceremony before the start of the game. Following the senior celebration and a national anthem sung by Piyapanee, the two teams went to battle with a packed crowd in attendance.
The visitors got off to a quick 5-0 lead, though the Beavers would not stay scoreless in the first period as first-year center defender Maya Dickson found the back of the net with 15 seconds remaining in the quarter.
La Verne would put another goal on the board as the second period began, though the home team soon responded with back-to-back goals from Dickson (3:38) and first-year driver Madelyn Gilbert (3:07) to make it a 6-3 game.
The Beavers would strike again in the early part of the third period, as Gilbert fed the ball to Piyapanee who rocketed it into the net for the team's fourth goal of the contest.
The score became 10-4 in favor of La Verne later in the period, though the Beavers were far from admitting defeat; first-year center attacker Mia Mutadich proceeded to score four consecutive goals as part of a run that carried into the fourth quarter.
The Leopards would respond with a score of their own to make it 11-8, but Gilbert responded with her second goal of the day, making the score 11-9. Despite the late push from the Beavers, La Verne held on as the final buzzer sounded.
Mutadich led the team with her four goals. Gilbert led the group in assists (three), as well as steals (four), tying her career high in the latter.
Piyapanee finishes her career with 51 goals, 38 assists, 59 steals and 74 sprints won. The team did not compete in 2021 and played a shortened season in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Head coach Jon Bonafede was proud of how well his team competed against La Verne, a nationally ranked foe in the conference.
"It was really good to see the team compete up until the very end of this game," said Bonafede. "We ran our strategy pretty well, so we were really happy to kind of rattle them a little bit and to get to 8-to-10 and 9-to-11 there late in the game.
Bonafede also noted how strongly the team performed throughout the season.
"I was just really impressed with the individual growth with a lot our players this year — they really put a lot into this season in terms of getting better at water polo and also just making our program a better place to play water polo," he said. "We're super excited for the future."
The team will take a well-deserved break before returning to competition in 2024.
