Last year, the girls’ water polo squad accomplished a feat no Cougar polo team before them had: they won a North Coast Section championship.
This year, the team is hoping to again come away from the section championships with the title.
But this year’s squad has a new challenge. The 2011 lineup is much younger than last year’s, as the team lost three key starters: Emily McPhee, Andie Nishimi, and Dana Holt. This year’s squad had large shoes to fill and players had to adjust to their new roles.
Co-captain and goal keeper, Gracie Fowler, is proud of the younger girls and thinks the new starters have “really stepped it up even though it was hard in the beginning because they had such big shoes to fill.” The starting lineup has only three seniors.
According to co-captain Kimi Klein, sophomore Annika Jensen has improved her game on the defensive side. Jensen is a new starter, along with junior Christy Faoro and sophomore Natalie Seidemann.
With the NCS playoff starting on November 2nd, the team hopes to capture back to back titles. They are seeded second. According to Klein, the main goal is to win NCS and throughout that pursuit, they must “be confident.”
Fowler, who had key saves in 2010, said winning NCS last year was the “best feeling in the world” and she hopes the team can have that feeling again.
The Cougars head into NCS after a 3rd place finish at the Nor-Cal tournament on October 29th. The top sixteen teams in northern California compete in this tournament and Klein said a high finish in this tournament was also one of the teams’goals.
The Cougars beat league rival, Las Lomas, for the first time this season to secure third place. The victory over the Knights gives Campo the confidence boost they need heading into NCS.
