The girls’ varsity water polo team finished third in the SFL division with a record of 26-5 and made it to the second round of the playoffs before falling to Rio Americano last week. Along the way, other accomplishments made this season especially memorable.
“The greatest moment was getting second place in the Woodcreek tournament because we played three solid games and beat highly ranked Division I teams to make it to the championship game and got a fat trophy,” captain Elizabeth Grover said.
The girls said they were were especially excited heading into playoffs, fully confident and expecting to make it far into the postseason.
“We knew heading in that we had to have tough defense and quick offense. If we could play as a team like we had been all season, we were confident that we would meet success just like we had met it during the season and at our tournaments,” starting goalie Kyla Sebens said.
The playoffs began with a dominating win over Dixon in the first round, beating them 18-1, however, the playoff dreams were brought to a sudden halt with an unexpected encounter and loss to Rio Americano in just the second round.
“Rio Americano is a very good team, there’s no doubt about that. We expected to play them some time in the playoffs, just much further down the line. CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) set the brackets unfairly, so we didn’t make it as far as we could have,” Stephanie Grover said.
However, the loss cannot define such a remarkable team. This team that has been with each other since the start of the school’s water polo program has worked its way up from the bottom, and, with the exception of one loss, has met nothing but success this season.
“At our awards banquet I started crying unexpectedly during my speech because I realized how much I loved all my teammates and all we have accomplished as a team and program and how rewarding it will be to be able to look back and go from losing every single game to being one of the best teams in the SFL,” Elizabeth Grover said.
In addition to team sleepovers and other bonding activities, they prepared for the postseason by creating team shirts. After Coach Kari Ustaszewski suggested the girls “toughen up” a bit, they created “gangsta names” for each other and decorated shirts with the nicknames, calling each other Balla (Kayley Marshall) and Mizz B (Marley Kinney), for example.
After such a successful year, one concern has to be for the future of the program. The good news is that the team will be switching into the much easier CAL division, but the bad news is that seven of the 14 players will graduate in June.
“The new teams will definitely be easier, but people are going to have to step up and fill our shoes,” Stephanie Grover said.
BY CHAD TUCKER
