Bear Polo Brings Home Gritty Win Against Andover

ANDOVER, MA - Since arriving on campus for preseason, boys’ varsity water polo has been practicing and training with a renewed sense of pride as the returning champions of the NEPSAC league. Although the loss of powerhouse seniors in the Class of 2013 such as Kurt Pianka ’13, John Moon ’13 and Max Drach ’13 served as a small concern, Big Red is off to a strong start for the fall 2013 season, foreshadowing a potential reigning of Exeter as the league champions for the second year in a row.Led by seniors co-captains JB Baker, Nick du Pont and Joe Shepley, this year’s team was described as “balanced” by many of the returning players. With mostly returning water polo players, aided by two new Exonians, lower Ernesto Brown and prep Jonathan Lee, Bear Polo faced Suffield and Hotchkiss as their first two opponents of the season.With overpowering offense and a tight defense, Exeter destroyed Hotchkiss in a lopsided 22-2 victory. Soon followed the game against Suffield, where it was proven that they were no match for Exeter, which was able to take the game easily with a 22-5 win.“Against Suffield and Hotchkiss, they weren’t great competition, so we got a lot of opportunities to play everybody, and they all played really well,” du Pont said about the first two games. “There was a lot of defensive awareness, not only from the starters, but also from the subs.”The first challenge for Bear Polo, undoubtedly, was the early matchup against traditional rival Phillips Academy this Wednesday. Although the game seemed tight, Exeter was able to pull together everything from their experiences, individual abilities, and excellent teamwork to clinch the valuable victory, 9-7.The game against Andover started off a little shakily, with Exeter trailing Andover at the end of the first quarter, 1-2. However, as Exeter realized the strength of their opponents, much different than their previous two games of the season, the players started pulling their defense together.From the beginning of the second quarter to the fourth quarter, both teams went head-to-head with lots of counter-attacking and hard defense, making the game a back-and-forth deal, full of turnovers. By the beginning of the fourth quarter, the two rivals were set even at 7-7.In the fourth quarter, Bear Polo was the team that was able to muster up enough energy for the final push. While maintaining their strengthened defense and not allowing any further goals, Exeter scored twice, one goal early in the quarter and one goal with two minutes left, sealing the well-deserved victory.Du Pont believed that the strong defense that Exeter displayed made the difference, especially towards the latter parts of the game.“Both the goalies, Conrad and Angus, had a good game day. They made a lot of saves, and didn’t turn the ball over much,” du Pont said. “Defensively, JB did a great job guarding one of their best players. He also earned a lot of ejections and five-meter penalty shots, offensively.”Despite the challenges faced at the Andover game, Baker believed that the season began relatively well. “The season started off really well, I think. Everyone’s playing well,” he said. “Joe Shepley has been really stepping up his defense and offense where he steals the ball a lot and gets open.”Although du Pont agreed, he also emphasized the team’s attitude of constantly training and practicing to become better athletes in the pool.“We won’t be able to rest much and have to keep up the hard practices because there were some weaknesses shown against Andover that we want to fix before the season ends. However, we have a really balanced team, and that’s going to be really good for us as the season goes on,” du Pont said.Next up for Exeter’s boys’ varsity water polo team will be a triple meet. Although Big Red is prepared for these games, they will be losing two of their strongest players and captains, Baker and Shepley. However, upper Brooks Saltonstall said that he does not predict too many problems, expecting that the team will remain strong. “[It] is unfortunate, but I’m pretty sure we have a deep enough team with quality players to overcome the misfortune of losing two very capable players,” he said.