Water polo is a sport where two teams of seven players each swim in a pool to score goals by throwing a ball into the other team’s net. The game combines elements of soccer (scoring goals) and basketball (no carrying the ball for more than a few seconds and a shot clock). Players must continuously tread water, swim with and without the ball, and pass, catch, and shoot the ball. It is a very tiring sport that requires both Swimming and passing skills.

This week, our JV water polo team showed that working together can get you far, even when we didn’t practice a lot, especially in this hard sport. After just five hours of practice, we almost won against St. John’s Prep, with a final score of 8-10 – much closer than the score suggests. From the start, our team tried their best and showed great sportsmanship. Everyone was giving it their all, passing, defending, and fighting for every point. The other team may have had more experience and strength, but we made up for it with teamwork and effort. We even got a lead at the end of the first half. Coach Russ said he was proud of how the team played. “We didn’t win today,” the coach said, “but what I saw was that we never gave up, and everybody has learned something. That’s what I want, and I can’t wait to see what they do next.”

After this significant match, every player started to train harder. Coach Forys told us to train on our fundamentals more, like egg beating, swimming at least 4 widths, and lots of other training to improve on endurance and strength. The best part was the scrimmage towards the end, where we talked about lots of strategies and all tried our best. Even though it was a loss, the team’s spirit and the fact that we are trying hard made it feel like we won.

Here are the 16 players and 3 coaches that are on JV water polo this year: Coaches Mr. Russ Yarworth, Mr. Sean Forys, and Ms. Brianna Harden, and players Trevor Bao ’27, Charles Bucci ’27, George Goodridge ’29, Geo Kim ’27, Preston Kim ’29, Adrian Li ’27, Lucio Li ’28, Jaden Mok ’27, Logan Oh ’27, Maxx Qin ’27, Andrew Sun ’28, Taka Takaki ’27, Ted Tian ’28, Alexander Zhang ’29, Anthony Zhao ’27 and Charlie Zhen ’28. We are fortunate to have such experienced and understanding coaches and hardworking players, who are creating strong bonds with each other in every play. We already had a decent start to the season. With more practice, more games, and the same strong