On Tuesday, Feb. 5, junior varsity girls water polo beat LCC nine to four, at their last home game. This victory ended a tough season with success.
This year’s junior varsity team had a challenge ahead of them with no returning players and a roster of three freshman, five sophomores, and four juniors. Being an inexperienced young team at the beginning of the season left them at a disadvantage.
“We have had to overcome the challenge of being all first year JV players and almost all of us never playing together before,” sophomore Cassidy Mayer said.
They started out the season unfamiliar with each other and how they played together. This unfamiliarity resulted in losses for the new team. Throughout the season, every player on the team worked hard to improve her own game and her chemistry with the team in and out of the water.
“We’ve gotten a lot closer as a team,” sophomore Jessie Chapman said. “We’ve bonded a lot and are all best friends now”.
After a season of ups and downs, they learned to work together and ended the season with win after win. Since this year’s varsity team will be graduating ten seniors, most of these young JV players will have to make the leap up to varsity. Varsity water polo already has a reputation of being the 2012 CIF Division 1 champions and again are seeded number one for the 2013 CIFs. These are big shoes to fill for such young players.
“I think if we work hard we can live up to the reputation,” sophomore Savanna Manley said.
Each off season is important for the growth of the team, and this next one will be no different. Overcoming their inexperience throughout the season this year will hopefully continue on to next year when these young players take on water polo at the varsity level.
“My motto for working hard in water polo is ‘you have to go wholeheartedly into everything in order to achieve anything worth having,” sophomore Tessa Greenhalgh said.
