Comebacks are hard to come by in sports. Getting down early in a game requires a lot of mental strength and fortitude for a team to fight and claw its way back into a game and win.
But that is exactly what the Clovis East Timberwolves girls water polo team did in its 9-7 comeback win in overtime against visiting Clovis West on Oct. 17.
“We’ve been doing mental training the last two years,” coach Lee Strosnider said of his team’s ability to be resilient. “It’s something that we do weekly and we have a whole structure for it and in those moments, we just say go back to those mentally tough days when we do that work.”
The Timberwolves were not particularly sharp throughout the first half.
Defensively, the team was unable to keep the Golden Eagles away from the net and they were punished for it.
West’s Riley Means and Sydney Gish combined for two goals in the first period, and the Timberwolves were able to answer with a goal of their own from Kena Waters.
The second period saw West’s Julianne Snyder and Gish put home another two goals, and again Clovis East answered with one of its own, this time from Kacy Wicks. At halftime of a low-scoring game, West held a tight 4-2 lead.
Gish and Snyder combined for another two goals in the third period to stretch the Golden Eagles to 6-2.
But this is when the Timberwolves dug down deep, summoning whatever strength they had left to mount a comeback that seemed improbable given the way West had controlled the match up to that point.
Wicks and Waters both scored goals to close out the period and cut the deficit to just two heading into the final seven minutes.
Maddie Bower found the back of the net with 2:07 left in regulation, and with 15 seconds left, Waters came up the biggest for her team with the game-tying goal that sent the game into overtime.
Waters added two more goals in overtime, including one on a penalty shot, to close out the game and the Golden Eagles.
The win improved the first-place Timberwolves record to 13-4 overall and 8-2 in TRAC play with two games left in the season before the playoffs. The team faces rival second-place Clovis on the road Oct. 23.
Clovis West dropped to 15-5 and 6-2 in the TRAC. The Golden Eagles face Buchanan at home Oct. 23.