Waterpolo Smashes Loomis Chaffee in 17-3 Blowout

Boys’ water polo beat Loomis by a large margin this past Saturday, redeeming themselves from their tough loss to Deerfield last week. This 17-3 win brought Big Red’s record to an impressive 9-2.After their second loss of the season, the boys were more than ready to rebound. Upper David Shepley said that over the past week leading up to the Loomis game during their hard practices, the team “focused on bringing relentless intensity” against their opponents.The players also worked to refine their ball awareness and made sure they knew exactly where the ball was at all times, while also focusing on the opposite team’s movements.Shepley said that Big Red lost to Deerfield primarily because they were playing too defensively and did not stay tough throughout the game.All of that hard work paid off against Loomis. The boys used all the techniques they practiced, and because of that, they were able to win by 14 points.“We all pulled together and were able to crush the competition,” senior and co-captain Brooks Saltonstall said.The primary goal-scorers were lower John Lee, upper Ernesto Brown and seniors Brooks Saltonstall and Prin Harinsuta.Since Loomis was not one of the hardest teams that Big Red has played in water polo this season, a lot of the athletes were able to “make a lot of good plays throughout the game,” according to Saltonstall.“[Prep] Jack Parell did an especially good job at showing aggressive defense and having a heads up awareness,” Shepley said.His intense focus led to several successful steals and turn-overs that led to more Exeter goals.Brown commented on how Saltonstall “made heads-up drives, and, as always, he went hard in the water” and how upper Will Belmont “swam hard, made good passes and had well-timed shots.”Only three games away from Interschols, the water polo team is still trying to improve their ball movement and teamwork.Brown said that they need to work on their communication as a whole because even though they did well against Loomis and in most of their other games, Interschols will be a challenging test to how much they have improved.Shepley said that during the Loomis game they tended to bunch up too close to each other when they set up for offense.“We should have been spreading out to draw the defense away from making easy steals,” he said.“If we can improve upon this, I think we will have much more successful offence attack and will give their defense a much harder time at getting a turn-over at Interschols.”