Water Polo Successful on Opening Weekend

The Middlebury women’s club Water Polo team successfully opened their season at the Natatorium last weekend, Feb. 20-21, where they hosted the first tournament of the season for the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA)’s Women’s New England Club Division. The Panthers, who ranked 11th out of the 16 teams competing for the 2015 National Collegiate Club Championship, emerged from the weekend in a tie for first place with their 3-1 record.

Middlebury went 2-0 with consecutive wins over Boston College and Dartmouth on day one of the tournament, followed by their convincing 11-point victory over Northeastern and hard-fought loss to Boston University on Sunday, Feb. 21.

After just four days of official team practices, the Panthers opened the season with a one-point victory over Boston College in a nail-biter on Saturday, Feb. 20. Middlebury got on the board in a hurry against the Eagles, as first-year Kate Claman ’19 scored the first two goals of her career at Middlebury in the first two minutes. Claman went on to sink three of the Panthers’ six goals in the first half, en route to a team-high of four goals.

Hannah Grotzinger ’16, one of the four senior team captains, explained why Claman’s performance was integral to the Panthers’ success.
“I play the set position — in front of the center of the goal on offense — and Boston College decided to double or triple-team me, so the shots on goal had to come from players at other positions,” Grotzinger said.

Following Claman’s initial 2-0 lead, Grotzinger traded goals with Boston College (BC), who brought the score to 5-3 by the end of the first quarter.

Co-Captain Alex Spencer-Wong ’16 then broke the Eagles momentum with a counterattack goal to open the second quarter, and Grotzinger tied the game at five goals apiece three minutes later. BC proceeded with a goal of their own before Claman shot from the outside to knot up the game at six apiece.

It looked like the teams would head into the halftime break tied at 6, but Boston College managed to score its seventh goal in the waning seconds, taking a 7-6 lead into halftime.
Emily Bustard ’17.5 led the charge for the Panthers after her stint as goalie in the second quarter, and added two goals in quick succession to put Middlebury on top 8-7.

Boston College would score with 13 seconds remaining in the third, leaving the fans on the edge of their seats with the game tied at eight as they awaited the final quarter.
The Panthers looked to continue putting pressure on the Eagles.

“Our goalie [Anna Lueck ’18.5] hasn’t been able to play recently, so some of our starters were playing in goal for the entirety of the tournament,” Grotzinger said.

“Because of [Lueck’s absence], our strategy against Boston College (and all teams) was to put a lot of pressure on their offense and guard them tightly to make passing difficult [and minimize their shots on goal].”

The game was in the balance until the very end, as Boston College went up 10-9 with 2:29 remaining on the power-play. One minute later, Claman found the back of the net for the Middlebury equalizer. Then, just as the game seemed destined for overtime, a five-meter penalty shot was awarded to the Panthers with 10 seconds left; Grotzinger’s five meter shot found the back of the net, allowing the Panthers to pull off an 11-10 victory.

The Panthers took on the Big Green of Dartmouth that same evening, coming through with a 9-6 victory.

“We were really excited before the game,” Grotzinger said. “Dartmouth has been our biggest rival for many, many years so we had a very strong desire to win before the game even started. This mentality definitely helped us during the game.”

It only took Grotzinger 20 seconds to get the Panthers on the board.

“In all the games we won this weekend, we scored the first goal of the game,” Grotzinger said. “The first team to score a goal in a game gets a very positive surge of adrenaline, and a lot of the sport is based on mental strength, not only physical strength.”

The Dartmouth game was all but over at the half, which began with a score of 6-1. “I think the most decisive point in the Dartmouth game came at the end of the second quarter after four different players on the Middlebury team had scored goals and we had prevented Dartmouth from scoring.”

“We had great momentum coming out of the second quarter, and one of our goals for the season is to be able to keep that going, even against a high-pressure defense like the one we faced from Dartmouth in the second half,” said Bustard, who scored her second goal of the game in the second half.

The Panthers held on in the second half for a 9-6 win. In addition to two-goal contributions from Bustard and Grotzinger, Co-Captain Christina Denbow ’16 scored 3, while co-Captainn Sam Horn ’16 put away one goal.

The Panthers hit the pool early on Sunday, Feb. 21 at 9 a.m. to commence a 13-2 rout of Northeastern. Middlebury jumped out to a 7-0 lead, going into the half up 8-1 over the Huskies.
“[The] Northeastern game was great because our newer players got to see a lot of game-time [where they could] practice the skills we’d been working on in practice,” said Grotzinger, who found the back of the net five times against the Huskies.

Other goals against Northeastern came from Bustard (4), Spencer-Wong (2), Julie Ehrlich ’17.5 (1) and Amanda Geller ’16 (1), while Denbow won three of the four sprints to start each quarter.

“Our team is naturally fast, so we were able to score on many counter-attacks against Northeastern — despite the fact that we’d only been training for four days before the tournament, compared to the other teams who had been practicing since mid-January,” Grotzinger said.

A few hours later, the Panthers took to the pool for the last time of the weekend against conference newcomer Boston University. The Panthers fell 7-4 but played the Terriers closely.

The Terriers jumped out to a 1-0 lead when they scored just under five minutes into the game. Grotzinger quickly answered with a backhand goal assisted by Horn.

Denbow began the Panthers’ second-quarter scoring as she netted an assist from Bustard off of the counter-attack. But every time the Panthers scored the Terriers had an answer, and then another when they scored just a minute later. Nevertheless, Bustard rounded out the quarter by sailing in a lob shot from the set position.

The third quarter began with another Grotzinger backhand goal, but again Boston responded with a quick goal to break a 4-4 tie. The Terriers followed with another three goals in the final half of play.

Despite ending the weekend with a loss, the Panthers had a successful first weekend and are in good position in the conference standings.

“I’m proud of the way we played this weekend, especially with it being so early in the season,” Bustard said. “I can’t wait to see what we can do in our next home tournament in April,” Grotzinger said.