With a trip to the Central Section Division III championship on the line, the top-seeded Sierra Pacific boys water polo team fell just short of playing for a title.
Hosting No. 4 Bakersfield, the Golden Bears led 3-2 after the first quarter before falling 11-6 to the Drillers to end their season.
With the loss, Sierra Pacific ends the year 20-10 overall.
Bakersfield led 5-4 at the half and extended its lead by outscoring Sierra Pacific 2-0 in the third and 4-2 in the fourth quarter. Bakersfield went on to lose in the championship game 15-10 to No. 2 Tulare Western, a team Sierra Pacific defeated earlier in the season.
CROSS COUNTRY
The Sierra Pacific cross country team competed at the TCC Championships last week at Woodward Park.
Both the boys and girls competed in the 5,000 meter race against runners from nine other schools.
Freshman Juan Ballen was the top finisher for the boys placing 15th with a time of 18:11.80. The team finished in fifth place out of 10 teams with 135 points with winner Reedley tallying 23 points.
The highest Sierra Pacific competitor for the girls race was Freshman Natalie Tang, landing in 28th place with a time of 24:32.51. The team finished in seventh place out of seven teams with 155 points. Imanuel won with a near-perfect score of 16 points.
The Central Section championships are Nov. 20 at Woodward Park.
BOYS SOCCER
The Golden Bears fell behind 3-0 at the half before losing to visiting Bullard 4-0 Tuesday, Nov. 18 in both teams’ season opener.
The Knights (1-0) had four different players score goals in the victory.
Sierra Pacific (0-1) hosts cross-town rival Hanford Saturday, Nov. 22 at 1:30 p.m.
