The Aragon’s girls water polo team started practices and is looking ahead to a season of competition.
Last year, the team placed 4th in the Peninsula League’s Bay Division after achieving a 6-6 record, with an overall 60% win rate throughout the general season.
“I know that we really wanted to make it to CCS, but we didn’t end up making it,” said current team captain Daryn Schell. “It was hard with COVID. We had a few games where we were missing a lot of people.”
Last year, six of the team’s starting players were seniors. Now that all of them have graduated, this year’s team is having to adjust to new leadership.
“We were a senior-heavy team so…all the seniors …taught a lot,” said junior Kaylyn Nguyen. “The main difference is that most of the seniors from last year played water polo for a majority of their life. But for us…we’re helping teach each other throughout the way.”
The graduated seniors have been attending and assisting with practices this year. However, the impact of them leaving will be more clear once they leave completely, closer to the start of scrimmages and league games.
“Last year…most of the seniors played the majority of time. So now the current seniors and juniors are probably going to play more,” Nguyen said. “Working together as a team and being able to communicate [is important].”
“It was really hard with COVID. We were missing a lot of people”
Players on the team are friends outside of practice. Their time spent together contributes to their cooperative team dynamic. Many also have prior experience in the water.
“Swim[ming] really has been able to help [with] endurance,” Nguyen said. “Swimming is a really individual sport a lot of the time. But with water polo, you’re able to work with each other.”
So far, the team has made some changes to their offensive strategies in preparation for the season.
“We always run different offense patterns, and we’re trying to switch that up this year by…having a more permanent [set position], which is the position closest to the goal,” Schell said. “We’re still going to run our rotation plays, but it’s going to be hard transitioning into getting more training specific to set.”
The team looks forward to competition from Burlingame and Woodside, both of whom presented a challenge to Aragon last year.
The girls water polo team will play Lick-Wilmerding in a scrimmage on Sept. 2 at 7 p.m.
