by Sara Lupu
Staff Writer
Last weekend the University of La Verne women’s water polo team competed in the Claremont Colleges Tournament where they swam with some tough competition in the pool.
The Leopards went 1 for 3 on the weekend after beating Macalester College (9-1), and dropping contests to Chapman University (6-4), Division II Cal State San Bernardino (8-0), and Division I Bucknell College (8-5), bringing their overall record on the season to 2-11.
With a slow offensive start on the weekend, the Leopards couldn’t keep up with the continuous firing of Bucknell, San Bernardino, and Chapman, but the Leopards regrouped and put on quite an offensive show to end the weekend on a good note against Macalester.
“This weekend was a good learning experience, and we have improved a lot in some areas that we have been weak in,” said sophomore goalie Mandy Sedia.
The young Leopards have been competing with a number of Division I and II scholarship-laden squads this season, including two of the teams they played this weekend. And, while the Leopards are just starting to get into the depth of their schedule, many of their opponents have played close to twice as many games.
“Even though we are playing bigger schools with stronger programs, we are definitely giving our all and improving with every game,” freshman Valerie Keehmer said.
“We are a really young team with a majority of freshmen and sophomores, and we are improving quite a bit,” head coach Tim Hugar said. “Last week we wouldn’t have been quite as competitive against these teams as we were this weekend.”
Hugar was especially pleased with the play of Sedia and Keehmer this past weekend.
“Mandy has come a long way after being out of the sport for a while,” Hugar said. “She was thrown into a tough position and is adjusting well in the cage. And Valerie has been doing a great job creating passes and feeding the ball to get our offense going.”
With pre-season play coming to an end, the Leopards will face a similar strength of competition in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference with teams such as Redlands, Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps holding national rankings, Pomona being the defending national champion.
Improving as a whole is a team goal for the Leopards as well as “being aggressive, playing to gain more experience and making things happen on offense,” Hugar said.
“We are really starting to communicate a lot more in the field, and that has been something we have been concentrating on getting better at,” Sedia said.
You can see the Leopards making a splash at 5 p.m. on March 31 at the La Verne Aquatic Center in their first conference match-up against Occidental College.
