The Cal Poly women’s water polo club team anticipates winning a fifth consecutive national championship in May, attributing its accomplishments to a close-knit and easygoing team environment.
The Mustangs won their eighth consecutive division championship April 15, earning the first seed in the 2012 National Collegiate Club Championship.
A key factor to the team’s success is bonding as well as hard work, biomedical engineering sophomore Leah Ashley said. While focusing on improving and doing practice drills, the girls’ relationships help keep them motivated.
“It’s not like one of those teams where the coach is super intense and you can’t laugh and you can’t have fun,” Ashley said. “We just all love each other, and (practice) is honestly the best part of my day.”
To prepare for nationals, the team is undergoing intensive cardio training to get in top shape and to keep their opponents swimming up and down the pool, Ashley said. They focus on a different aspect of the game each night, such as counter attacks, defense and offense.
The Mustangs have built their reputation as the team to beat since its was first established, and the players look forward to nationals with a motivation to beat out difficult competition, Ashley said. Nationally, the University of Michigan is their biggest opponent, while San Diego State University (SDSU) is their biggest competition within their league, she said.
The women secured their place in nationals when they beat SDSU 8-6 last week. Earlier in the season, during the league finals, SDSU beat the team by one point in overtime.
“They were the only team that’s beaten us in quite a long time … so that game right there was a little bit of a disappointment,” Ashley said. “So playing them last weekend in league finals was a really big deal too. We wanted to take them and show them that that was just kind of a fluke game.”
The team made up for this loss when it won against UCLA in February with a score of 14-5, gaining momentum to win its way to nationals, said head coach and civil engineering senior Joshua Combs.
“(UCLA) is traditionally a very strong team and our No. 1 rival,” he said. “Seeing the girls still own that situation … and playing almost a perfect game in my opinion, it shows that when they want something — when they’ve got that driven mentality — this team is unstoppable.”
Despite losing four of seven core starters when they graduated last year, the team still expects to continue the tradition of winning nationals, Combs said.
“We definitely lost a lot of quality when you’re just looking at that,” he said. “It was very interesting to see the younger girls from last season really step it up and really take ownership of their new roles on the team. They just said, ‘We’re going to make it our team and continue the tradition of success Cal Poly has had.’”
Team goalie and biological sciences junior Morgan Rollo in particular has been a huge contributor to the team, Combs said.
Rollo never played water polo before joining the team last season but has become integral to the team’s success.
“She’s been a brick wall in that cage for us,” Combs said. “She really produced some phenomenal games at the beginning of the season, and she just fit into that spot perfectly well. She knows the team well after being on it last year, she knows the game well and she’s, in my opinion, one of the best goalies in the nation, hands down.”
Rollo attributes her success as goalie to working with last season’s goalie throughout the fall to get in shape before the season started. Her past experience as a soccer player was helpful as well.
“I just feel really comfortable being in a cage,” she said. “The team is super encouraging and supportive of it being my first season, but I put pressure on myself to live up to (the last goalie’s) level.”
With a solid netminder (slang for goalie) and players in top shape, the Mustangs will face their competition May 4 to 6 at Florida State University. The team will compete against 15 others including UC Santa Cruz, University of Michigan, University of Oregon and University of Florida.
Team captain and math senior Ciani Sparks said she looks forward to nationals as it is her last year playing Cal Poly water polo. The pressure of fully showcasing each player’s talent and maintaining national success is no big deal, she said.
“I think we always expect it to be tough because we do have a big target on our back,” she said. “Everybody wants to beat us. Every team really has it out for us, so we always go into nationals expecting to play the four hardest games of the season.”
To prepare for a difficult competition, the team meets for two-and-a-half hours a night, five nights a week and meets twice a week in small groups to complete additional swim sets. Fundamentals are a crucial part of training, Sparks said.
“We really worked on the small aspects of the sport,” she said. “When you fine-tune them, it really helps you in the long run. The small things really do make the difference, like passing or using your legs.”
The team is confident and fully expects to continue its tradition of winning a national title, Sparks said.
“We just have to stay focused and motivated for the next two weeks,” she said, “But I think we have a very talented team this year and we definitely have the potential to win.”