Water Polo Drops Two Games, Early Season Struggles Continue
By Susannah Edelbaum
Sports Editor

The men’s water polo team had a rough time at Cal Baptist on Saturday during the Lancer Invitational. The team was defeated 2-8 by Riverside Community College and was arrowly edged out by Chapman, who won with a final score of 8-7.

“We should have won,” said team captain, Ben Speicher ’03, about the game against Chapman.
The game was reminiscent of the Sagehens’ match against UC Santa Clara at the Inland Empire Invitational last weekend. The Pomona-Pitzer men played well in both contests and the play tended to go back and forth between the teams each time. In both the Santa Clara and Chapman games, the Sagehens were defeated by extremely small margins.

“[This game] was up and down,” Speicher said about Saturday, “but we had some good opportunities.”

Going into the fourth quarter, Pomona-Pitzer was only down by three points. When there were 25 seconds left on the clock, P-P took control of the ball and Ian Kusao ’06 tried to pass from the right wing over to Glenn Anderson (PI), who was set up in front of Chapman’s goal. Unfortunately, a Chapman player was able to steal the ball and then the team called a time out. For the final fifteen seconds of play they passed the ball around, eating the clock.

“It was a disappointing game,” Speicher admitted, “but if we had to play them again we would beat them. If we want to have a successful season, we’re going to have to beat teams of that level.”

The team’s second game of the day was against Riverside Community College, which is known for its strong, fast players. The Sagehens’ play wasn’t as strong as it had been earlier in the day, either.

“We’re improving a lot, but we just couldn’t get the ball in the cage,” Speicher said. “You have your ups and downs some days.”

P-P is fairly optimistic about their games at the UCSC Slug Fest at Santa Cruz this weekend. The team will be playing Santa Clara and CMS, both of whom they feel they have the ability to beat. Most players’ feelings regarding their other opponents, who include UC Davis and the Air Force Academy, are somewhat more reserved. Those schools are much larger than P-P, and the Air Force Academy plays in Division I. The intensity of the Sagehens’ play, however, has a tendency to increase with the difficulty of their competition.

On the whole, the team is confident about the rest of the season, including their SCIAC games, which kick off October 23 in a home game against Cal Tech.

“We’re working really, really hard. We just haven’t put it all together yet,” Speicher said.

The team is also very positive about the new head coach, Jason Gall, who replaced Jim Armstrong before the 2002 season began. Gall has been the women’s water polo team’s coach since the 1997-1998 season.

Under his tutelage, the Sagehen men have been getting into shape as a team, training harder, and running more effective drills than they had in previous seasons.
“We’re coming together as team,” Andrew Shetterly ’05 said about the season thus far.