Girls’ Water Polo Crushes Loomis, Younger Players Given Chance to Shine

This past Saturday, the girls’ varsity water polo team traveled to Loomis Chaffee to play in a double header against the Williston Northampton School and the hosts. With their skill, determination, and drive as a team, the girls managed to pull out two wins for Big Red, finishing both games one point ahead of the competition.So far, the season has been a great one for the girls’ team. They started the term well with an 11-2 win against the girls’ Deerfield squad in a home game two Saturday ago. This season has been great for many of the new players as well, since they are getting experience in the pool, and plenty of playing time due to Exeter’s large point margin. It also gives the returning players more practice to hone their skills in shooting and passing.Both games this Saturday were played in the Loomis pool, which gave Exeter’s players a bit of a disadvantage. “It was a meter pool instead of the yard pool, which is the length we train in, and it was a shallow-deep pool, so we had to adjust to those factors in order to play better,” upper Michelle Ysrael said.“It was tough to adjust to the pool,” prep Emily LaRovere added. “It was really different than what I was used to, and it was the first shallow pool I’ve played in. But it was a good thing to get under my belt.”“Overall it was a good learning experience and as a team we got to see where our strong and weak points were,” Ysrael said of the weekend as a whole.During both games, the girls’ squad started out ahead of the competition, but their strength waned a bit as time progressed. “We started both games out strong and in the lead, but we faltered a little towards the end,” Ysrael said. Williston also was a particular challenge to the girls, as they had a talented goalie who stopped many of Big Red’s shots. “Williston had a great goalie and although we got the ball down and took many shots, only a few made it in, making the game a little frustrating,” Ysrael added.But Janet Chen and Corinne Noonan still managed to have fantastic games. Noonan, an aggressive player, played extremely well, albeit perhaps a bit too hard. After three ejections in the first game, she was unable to continue into the next match. “Williston was having a really hard time keeping up with Corinne,” Ysrael said. “Unfortunately, her ejections prevented her from playing against Loomis, but she did so well against Williston. Meanwhile Chen finished the weekend as the top goal scorer on the team, with 8 goals overall.“I’m really proud of the girls performance this weekend,” manager and lower Quinn Hickey said. “It was so exciting watching them from the pool deck. All of them played so well, and it’s really been a pleasure to watch them play so far this season. I’m hoping the rest of the term is just as successful.”