Women's Water Polo Dominates CMS
By Tamara Zakim
Sports Editor

Five-college sports fans and athletes alike generally agree that match-ups between Pomona-Pitzer and cross-campus rivals CMS promise close scores and exciting competition, regardless of disparity between team rankings in SCIAC. In the thrill of rivalry, the teams come fired up and equipped with their A game, neither one expecting to walk away with an easy win.

Last Saturday's meeting between the Sagehen and Athena water polo teams proved to be a glaring exception to the rule, however, as the Hens ran up the score early in the game and handed the Athenas a lopsided 10-5 loss in the Claremont pool. Solid team effort across the board, boosted by the offensive prowess of Lucia Schmit '03, gave Pomona-Pitzer their fourth straight win, protected their undefeated streak in conference and demonstrated why the Hens are ranked number one in the country.

A goal by Pomona-Pitzer in the first possession of the game foreshadowed the subsequent unfolding of events. Only 18 seconds after Joy Haviland '03 won the opening race, Schmit received the ball at whole-set and found the back of the cage with ease. A 1-0 lead would quickly melt into a 3-0 advantage by the end of the quarter and an eventual 6-0 lead half way through the second. Twenty seconds after the initial goal, Haviland stole the ball from CMS to return possession to the Hens. A pass by Lindsay Norcott '03 found Lauren Moore '05 in position to score and a sailing lob shot landed softly behind the Athena goalie for another Sagehen point.

Trademark pressure defense by Pomona-Pitzer shut down CMS shooting opportunities and resulted in numerous steals. Schmit and Blair Henderson '04 swiped the ball from Athenas in consecutive possessions, and with a little over a minute left in the quarter, Henderson earned an ejection to give her team a 6-on-5 advantage. After two shot attempts careened off the goal posts, the Hens beat their opponents to the ball and came up with the rebounds. On the third try, Schmit managed to nail the put-back and the quarter closed with a score of 3-0.

Stephanie Stewart '05 started the second quarter with a bang after stealing the ball on the defensive end and prompting another counter-attack. Moore earned an ejection in the transition and fed the ball back to Stewart, who fired the ball in for the fourth team goal of the game. The Hens continued to out hustle the Athenas to the ball on both ends of the pool; two minutes into the quarter, Ashley Gucinski '06 grabbed a rebound on offense and earned an assist by feeding the ball to Schmit at whole-set. Schmit, true to form, converted the play and scored her third point and the team's fifth. Another steal on defense, this time snagged by goalie Morgan Sokolow '04, had Pomona-Pitzer aggressively pushing up the pool in transition yet again. Henderson earned an ejection with four minutes on the clock, and the ball was returned to hot-handed Schmit at two meters, raising the score to an alarming 6-0 in Sagehen favor.

CMS finally managed to put some points on the board with less than three minutes left in the first half. Athena go-to player Annie Richardson, a transfer from UCLA's Division I program, managed to escape otherwise tenacious defense by Haviland for two quick shots. Bad passes by the Sagehens rendered the team unable to convert a 6-on-5 advantage late in the half, and as the clock expired the score was 6-2.

Adjustments made by the Athenas at halftime in response to Schmit's stellar shooting at whole-set did little to nothing to threaten Pomona-Pitzer's dominant lead. As defenders collapsed on Schmit in the opening minutes of the second half, Henderson found herself open on the outside, drilling a shot into the upper left corner of the CMS cage and upping the score to 7-2. A counter-attack by CMS was denied as Sokolow came up with a resounding block in the goal for the Hens, and strong two-meter defense by Moore resulted in numerous steals. Nevertheless, third quarter performance was plagued by turnovers and sloppy passes by both teams. A foul called against the Hens yielded a 4-meter penalty shot for the Athenas to bring the score to 7-3. With 45 seconds left in the period, Sokolow was ejected in the process of chasing down a rebound. A shot by the Athenas in the 6-on-5 situation, however, was impressively denied by Grucinski who came into the cage to take Sokolow's spot.

Whether due to fatigue or to confidence in the inevitable outcome of the game, Pomona-Pitzer defense eased up in the fourth quarter, allowing the Athenas to take more shots and score two more goals. Regardless, the Hens boosted their lead to 10-5 in the last two and a half minutes of the game. Haviland earned an ejection with 2:30 on the clock, enabling Stewart an open look at the cage for a goal. One minute later, Toby Branz '05 successfully shot the ball from two-meters past the outstretch arms of the ineffective Athena goalie. Most fittingly, Pomona-Pitzer's final goal was produced by Schmit, who managed to power the ball into the lower right corner of the cage despite the three defenders hanging from her torso in vain attempts to stop her.

The Pomona-Pitzer win improved their record to 11-6 overall and 3-0 in SCIAC. Having knocked off both number two team Redlands and number three team CMS, the Sagehens are looking to finish their regular season play undefeated before the SCIAC tournament commences at Redlands next weekend. They play Occidental tomorrow at 11 a.m.