Water polo ends season on a high note Panthers take third in championship tourney hosted by Midd

Author: Zamir Ahmed

The Middlebury women's water polo team played host to the New England Division Championship at the Natatorium this weekend. The team fell one place short of a trip to the National Collegiate Club Championship held in Texas, finishing third out of the six teams participating.

The Panthers opened up the tournament on Saturday, April 9 with a match-up against the Yale University's "B" squad. The Panthers showed its dominance in this meeting, winning the game by a comfortable margin of 13-3. The Panthers then moved on to its second game of the tournament against rival Yale 'A.' Although they put up a tough early fight, the Bulldogs were too much for the Panthers, downing the team by a score of 11-2.

"We all went into the tournament wanting to beat Yale," said Alexis Kearney '05. "It was a big game for us. We had a big crowd there supporting us. We managed to hold them through the first quarter of the game but we just could not hold on for longer."

That night the Panthers wrapped up their first day of the tournament, squaring off against Dartmouth College. Still disappointed by their loss to Yale, the team was overwhelmed by the Big Green attack and ended up dropping the game 11-2. Despite the large deficit, goalie Lee Corbet '07 had a strong game in goal, making several great saves for the Panthers.

On Sunday morning, Middlebury faced off against Williams College in a battle for third place in the tournament. The Panthers took the lead from the start against the Ephs and never looked back, taking the game by a score of 8-4. The team wrapped up the tournament with a record of 2-2 and a third-place finish behind Dartmouth and Yale 'A,' respectively.

"Everyone is pleased with our result this year," said Kearney. "It was the best we ever finished in the tournament. We are disappointed we did not beat Yale but we still had a great year."

Overall the team finished the year with a record of 6-6, having participated in tournaments at Yale and Wesleyan during the spring. The Division Championship also brings to a close the collegiate careers of the four seniors on this year's team - Kearney, Alexis Hollinger '05, Karen Lee '05 and Whitney Sones '05.

The Panthers are already looking forward to next year and hope they can improve on the progress they have made this year. Despite the loss of four important players to graduation, the team feels it can weather this loss because of its young depth and talent.

"We had eight new players this year," said first-year Jeanie LaPlante. "We are a growing team and this was a building year. We had a lot of fun this year because of our good team chemistry. Next season we hope to work harder and get to nationals."

The team has already made big strides in both size and competitiveness since they came into existence six years ago. "When we first started we only had eight players in total," said Kearney. "This year we had a lot of new players. Half of them had experience beforehand and half were just coming into the water."