The Livingston High boys water polo team erased a two-goal deficit in the final three minutes as senior Aydan Ramirez delivered the clutch, game-winning goal with 14.7 seconds remaining to lift the Wolves to a thrilling 8-7 victory over Beyer in a battle of two undefeated teams in the Western Athletic Conference on Wednesday afternoon at Livingston High School.

 

The Wolves now stand alone atop the WAC standings at 7-0 and improved to 11-5 overall. Livingston is trying to win back-to-back WAC championships after earning their first league title since 2016 last season. Ramirez delivered when it mattered most, scoring his only goal in the game at crunch time.

 

“I’m second on the team in scoring, I’ve got to be able to take that shot, especially those outside shots,” Ramirez said. “I can't let myself get down because I was 0 for four before. I have to stand up in that spot. It made me really feel proud when that shot went in.”

 

A scoring change dramatically changed the game in the fourth quarter. The Wolves were ahead 7-6 when Beyer called into question a goal that wasn’t allowed earlier in the quarter. After a long discussion, the goal was granted and the game had to go back to that point when the goal would have been scored and restarted from there. 

 

So instead of Livingston leading and trying to close out the victory, Beyer now had a 7-5 lead. The two goals the Wolves had scored since that point of the game were wiped away. 

 

Suddenly the Wolves were facing a two-goal deficit with just three minutes left in the game. “I wasn't expecting them to take more than one goal because we fully earned that second goal,” said Livingston coach Jose Alvarez. “For us to come back, we really just had to tell ourselves, look, we're better than this. We can keep scoring. We could come back from this, and they did. They regrouped, they really fought hard for this win.”

 

Senior Kelvyn Edwards scored his fifth goal of the game to pull the Wolves within 7-6 with just over a minute left. Livingston then took advantage of a man-up situation on the following possession as Daelin Edwards scored to tie the game at 7-7 with 34 seconds left.

 

After coming up with a third consecutive stop on the defensive end, Ramirez found the ball in his right hand at the top and fired a shot that found the back of the cage to give the Wolves an 8-7 lead with 14.7 seconds remaining.

 

“Ayden is the man to take the shot,” Alvarez said. “This was a tough game for him. They were putting tremendous pressure on him, which led to some bad shots early. But for those game-winning shots like that, I have my full trust in him or Kelvyn to take those shots, and they came through in that last minute.”

 

“I don't think we played the greatest today,” added Ramirez. “But we were able to get that like two-minute talk we had with each other, and we were able to play defense really well at the end and that helped us get this win.”

 

Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.