Boys’ WoPo Struggles at Tourney

This weekend, boys’ varsity water polo competed in a tournament at Deerfield Academy, playing three straight games against the Hopkins School, the Brunswick School and Williston Northampton School. The boys started the tournament on the wrong foot, just missing a win against Hopkins, losing 7-9. In the next game against the Brunswick School, while the boys played better, they were nevertheless dominated, suffering a huge loss 5-17. Finally, in their last game against Williston Northampton, the boys caught their break and soundly defeated their opponent 16-7. While the day began with a disappointing loss, it at least ended on a good note. With two losses and one win from the weekend, the boys broke even with 3 wins and 3 losses to the season.

The boys were disappointed by their lackluster performance in their game against Hopkins, a team, according to lower Taylor Walshe, Exeter should have beaten easily. In the second match though, invigorated by their frustrations at the previous game, the boys battled hard against Brunswick. In the first half, the two teams were neck and neck, but in the second half, Brunswick pulled ahead of Big Red by another nine points, finishing with a 12-point lead.

“To improve on our performance, we just need to get our endurance up, which will come over the next few weeks through some tough training.”

Despite the big loss, the Big Red boys were proud of how they played in the game against Brunswick. Brunswick was a skilled team, according to senior and captain Ernesto Brown. “It was a hard loss to Hopkins, but we did bring it back and play a better game against Brunswick, even though we got crushed. They are good, very good,” Brown said.

Although disappointed and tired, the boys were determined to take home a win against Williston Northampton. According to Walshe, the Williston Northampton match was actually the easiest, even though the Exeter boys were exhausted. Brown was proud of the boys for giving their all until the end and keeping a positive attitude in the face of apparently unsportsmanlike conduct from their opponents. “[Williston Northampton] played dirty, but we kept our wit about us and played it,” he said.

Despite the win against Williston Northampton, the boys were still disappointed by their overall performance. The boys attributed their losses to two major factors: first, the team was missing several of its key starters, and second, they are not yet well enough conditioned to persist through difficult games.

Senior Graham Hazlett said that while the team performed well, “we ran out of energy [and] seemed to falter.” Although they had strong passing and shooting, “[it] didn’t matter as much as we got tired and we were not able to swim to get open or sprint on fast breaks.”

Lower Harry Saunders said the team also needs to work on “marking up when we get back on defense and making quicker decisions with the ball on offense.”

Walshe agreed, recalling that both Exeter and the other teams often scored off of turnovers. If the boys can counter the other teams’ counterattacks and increase their steals, they can both prevent and score more goals. “One thing we need to get better at is swimming faster down the pool for both offense and defense because a lot of the goals that we scored and that were scored against us were off of the counterattack,” Walshe said.

Despite the disappointments of the tournament, the boys enjoyed the experience. “Overall it was a fun tournament and our team definitely improved,” Walshe said. “Our main priority is always hard-pressed defense and at the tournament, we found success in forcing turnovers,” Walshe said.

The team hopes to rebound from its losses over the weekend and head into practice this week with even greater vigor. Hazlett said the team will be conditioning intensively. “To improve on our performance, we just need to get our endurance up, which will come over the next few weeks through some tough training,” Hazlett said.

Bear Polo will be looking to make their comeback at their away game against Choate Rosemary Hall this Saturday.