Lancaster City Water Polo – British Championship Title Defence

Lancaster City Water Polo Team made a solid start to the defence of their British Championship Title last weekend at the Manchester Aquatics Centre.

For the weekend they faced games against Welsh Champions Welsh Wanderers, West London Penguin and Cheltenham.

The first game against Welsh Wanderers started at an impressive pace. Under the watch of new coach from Milan Alberto Bertolotti Lancaster established an early 4:1 advantage through Andy Squires, Ryan Pinnington and two from Scot Carpenter. The Welsh responded with goals from Laxton and by half time the lead was down to 6:4. The third quarter was an even affair with goals from Glen Robinson and Csaba Kerekes cancelled out by goals from Holt and a further effort from Laxton.

Lancaster came out for the final quarter with a more determined approach and took the game to the Welsh with some impressive counter attacking. Lancaster rattled up a total of 9 goals in the final quarter with contributions from James Wannop, Colin Burgess, Ciaran James, Rysz Detko and 5 from Scot Carpenter to run out comfortable winners by 19:10.

The next game of the weekend was at 9am Sunday morning against West London Penguin. This game saw the return of captain Chris Hartley who had been confined to bed the previous day whilst Penguin included 2 experienced Hungarians in their ranks.

Lancaster again started quickly but having established a 2:0 lead through Colin Burgess and Glen Robinson were pegged back with goals from Csorgo and Elder. The second quarter was also tight but Lancaster managed to establish a four goal advantage after two goals from Scot Carpenter plus two from debutant Chris Gilbertson who had just completed his signing from Sedgefield prior to the Championship. Half time score 9:5

Penguin hit back in the third quarter and at one stage the lead was back down to one as Lancaster incurred a number of major fouls which Penguin took full advantage to win the quarter 3:1 to give a score line of 10:8.

The end of the quarter gave coach Bertolotti the chance to change Lancasters defensive tactics and this appeared to pay dividend as goals from Chris Gilbertson, Glen Robinson and 2 more from Scot Carpenter allowed Lancaster to run out eventual winners by 14:8.

The final game of the qualifiers was against recent rivals Cheltenham. During the recent National League campaign Lancaster shared two high scoring draws with Cheltenham. However, Cheltenham’s shock defeat against Penguin on the Saturday meant that only the winner of this games was guaranteed to qualify for the semi-finals.

This turned out to be Lancasters best performance of the weekend as they totally out played Cheltenham in the first half two establish a comfortable 7:2 lead. Goals came from Scot Carpenter (3), Chris Gilbertson (2), Colin Burgess and Rysz Detko. Even when Cheltenham did break through they found keeper Dave Bush who was in no mood to be beat.

The third quarter saw Cheltenham hit back to narrow the advantage to 9:6 through goals from Parsonage and Thomas. However, Lancaster were not to be denied and they again finished the game strongly and with goals from Robinson, Kerekes, Squires, Gilbertson and a further two from Scot Carpenter eventually ran out comfortable winners by 14:8.

This result meant that Cheltenham along with National League winners Bristol (Champs to Chumps) were now eliminated and gives a semi final line up of:

Rotherham Metro V West London Penguin
Lancaster City V City of Manchester.