This year’s water polo season began once again with its traditional “Hell Week” comprised of intense cross-training conditioning. For the girls teams, however, “Hell Week” may be the only thing that hasn’t changed.
Most notably, the girls teams will be coached by a new athletic department member this year, Ross Bridges. Bridges replaced Aragon’s previous girls water polo coach, Joshua Tatro, who was taken into custody in June on suspicion of sexual misconduct with a minor.
Prior to working with the Olympic Development Program, Bridges coached four years of high school water polo at Saratoga High School and Homestead High School and eight years of high school swimming at Castilleja School.
Having played a supporting role in coaching some athletes that went on to the U.S. Olympic swim team in London, Bridges brings experience and strategy to Aragon girls water polo. He says, “I’m trying to get them to react to the game better. Water polo is a skill game, a conditioning game, and a game of reaction. Typically you go in with a strategy and you have to adjust things; we can’t practice everything, but we can execute properly.”
Bridges has implemented many new coaching methods in order to reach the team’s goal of four offensive sets.
Senior Sharon Borden, who has played girls water polo at Aragon for the past four years and has been on varsity for the past two years, has observed many improvements in the water polo team’s coaching. She says, “We’ve been running a lot of drills called ‘driving drills.’ If we’re doing something wrong, Coach Ross will stop us in our place, tell us where we went wrong, and help us go over it slowly. He works out the small details until we get it right.”
Freshman Darryn Brugioni, a Junior Varsity athlete, adds, “He’s also really nice. He doesn’t just say, ‘Do this. Get out and run.’ He says, ‘You do this and we will be a better team.’”
Indeed, Bridges prides the team for its give-and-take mentality. He says, “One of the sophomores on the team, Tessa Draper, is a very skilled player. We talk about what she does at club, and we try to integrate some of the sets with the team. I have an open dialogue with the girls. I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘I know all the answers.’ We talk about what they’ve experienced, and then we can say, ‘OK, let’s try that.’ By the end of the season, we could be a whole different team.”
He adds, “At moments we have flashes of brilliance, and at other moments it’s like ‘We’re really confused here! What are we doing?’—but that’s OK because we talk about it and we work through it. I want to keep it simple because what we do, we do well.”
Eager to heed their new coach’s valuable advice, the team has been focusing on core athleticism.
Teammate and junior Laurel Machak, who is currently out on injury, says, “He wants us to work on really basic skills. If we get those down, then we can build on top of them.”
Indeed, the girls water polo team is eager to build upon both skill and fitness alike. Although “Hell Week” is an arduous hurdle where, in any typical day, the team will run around the school twice and do core workouts, before getting in the pool, the team believes it will be worth the plight.
“It’s more serious this year,” says Borden, “The intensity has risen a lot. We aim to put our heads in the game because we are in a high division, so we have to work hard.”
The players unanimously agree that Menlo-Atherton will be a top challenger to their hard work. Senior Olivia Chan says, “M.A. has had the same coach for so long that they have a lot of people that are really into the sport.”
However, with a new coach, this season promises progress for years of Aragon water polo to come.
Junior Daniella Kotowitz says, “There are a lot of juniors on the team this year, so Coach Ross wants it to be a ‘building year.’ Even if we don’t succeed in all of our goals this season, we are creating a stronger team for next year.”
With bright hopes and new swimsuits, the team is more than happy to put the arrest of Tatro behind them. Tatro failed to appear in court on September 6th for his preliminary hearing, which has been rescheduled for a later date.
“We have moved on,” says Daniella’s sister and fellow teammate, junior Paige Kotowitz. “It’s a new season with a new coach.”
Similarly, Bridges says he is excited to be back to coaching water polo. He adds, “I love it here. This is probably the best high school experience I’ve had. Everybody is working together—it just seems like a really [friendly] environment for not only the students but the teachers as well.”
As the team stretched in preparation for their day’s conditioning, Borden addressed her teammates, affirming, “Remember, we run as a group with the slowest person.”
The first girls game of the season will be on Wednesday, Oct. 3 at Castilleja. Junior Varsity plays at 4 p.m., varsity plays at 5 p.m.
