Royal and Nalanda show their prowess in Water Polo
View(s):The 2nd Traditional Nalanda-Royal Water Polo encounter took place at the Royal College Swimming Complex last Saturday. Prior to the main event Under 15 match took place with both Royal and Nalanda youngsters taking the waters to show their prowess at the junior level.
The Under 15 match got off to a flying start with both sides started moving towards the opponents goal area and making shoots at the goal with terrific pace. The 1st quarter went on as both sides scoring two goals each. The first quarter ended with scores standing 2-2.
The second quarter too went at the same pace as in the first quarter and the Royalist and Nalanda juniors scoring the same number of goals 2-2 with the total points standing 4-4 at the end of the quarter.
Royal moved ahead in the 3rd quarter taking advantages of Nalanda swimmers mistakes adding three more goals to their tally. While Royal added three goals Nalanda managed with only one goal with taking their score to seven to Nalanda’s five.
The final quarter saw the Royalists moving further ahead with some intelligent play giving the Nalandian custodian extra work. Royal juniors added three more goals taking the final score to 10 to Nalanda’s 6 to emerge winners.
The experienced Royalist were favourites in the senior game, but a gallant fight back by Nalanda in the final quarter made their journey to victory a tough one.
In the first quarter the Royal led 7-3 and went ahead in the second quarter with a 13-6 lead. Nalanda coming back into the game in the third quarter added two goals despite stiff resistance from the Royal defence line while the Reid Avenue School added only two more goals. At the end of the third quarter the scores stood 15-8. The game came to a close with the final score standing 21-16 giving Royal a 2-0 lead in the series.
– Lakshman Ranasinghe Pix by Ranjith Perera
