Last year, the girls water polo team (0-2 overall) had a successful season, racking up a total of 312 goals and finishing in the Central Coast Section finals where they lost 5-4 against Saratoga.
“The girls’ season will look a little different this year because the Bay Division has moved to a double round robin for the first time in many years,” said former head coach Roxanne Tursi. “This means [there will be] twice the number of league games as compared to last year. Menlo has moved to the WCAL, a different league, so our biggest league competitions will be against Castilleja and Notre Dame Belmont.”
Not only is the division different, but the team’s makeup has changed significantly this year as well.
“On varsity, we have seven returning players with four moving up from JV and one new athlete,” said head coach Kielan Crow. “I’m already excited by the strong leadership I’ve seen from our upperclassmen which should accelerate our five new varsity athletes’ growth. Our new players are bringing a hungry learning attitude to the pre-season that will infuse our returning athletes with the drive to continue to improve.”
Along with new players, the team will be looking at slightly different styles of play since they have a new head coach.
“My defensive priority is always to start in a strong press defense and then transition to a drop or zone if the opponent has talented two meter players,” Crow said. “For offense, I’m still familiarizing myself with our offensive weapons, but hope to institute an active, driving-centric attack.”
The girls water polo team managed to score an average of 6.7 goals a game in 2018. However, there are always skills to improve upon, as the Dons hope to have an even more effective attack this year.
“Last season, we did pretty well. We worked well as a team but I think maybe we need to work on taking initiative,” said sophomore attacker Ruby Vogel. “I think we waited a lot on a bunch of drives and trying to get open for people to pass to. So this season I just hope we’ll be really open with each other and just take the initiative to just go for it no matter how hard it is and force a lot of those drives.”
Working on and identifying areas of improvement are a huge part of the beginning of the season.
“I’m a strong believer in fundamentals, so the first part of the season will be dedicated to individual fundamental skills and conditioning to ensure our athletes have enough endurance to maintain their good form,” Crow said. “As we continue throughout the season, we will introduce more complex strategies once we have grown proficient at our previous ones.”
Along with examining areas of improvement, the team is also setting goals.
“As this is my first season as head coach, my goals are fairly simple: ensure all players focus on their education, create a culture of supportive teamwork and help foster every player’s growth as a water polo player,” Crow said.
Their next game will be at home against Lick-Wilmerding (0-2 overall) on Sept. 16.
