The tide may be finally turning for Boys Varsity Water Polo.  With a new head coach and five new players, the team is confident that it can get the program moving in the right direction.

This season, five new players join 13 returners. According to Carter Levine ’22, “The transition has been very good, and everyone has been helpful and inclusive.”

The upperclass team members and co-captains, Fernando Elizondo Junco ’19 and Wonwoo Lim ’19, alongside Head Coach Kurt Hinck ’08 and Assistant Coach Carita Gardiner have welcomed new teammates with open arms. Chapman Petersen ’22 said, “Andrew and Fernando are great with including everybody and helping with learning skills in a sport that some of us have never done before. I have learned so much about the game and the rules and strategically what I should be doing.”

So far, Boys Varsity Water Polo has played six games. The team could not pull off a victory in games against Suffield, Exeter, and Loomis Chaffee, but redeemed themselves by dominating its fourth game against Westminster.  On Saturday, they lost to both Andover and Lawrenceville. 

The team has some flaws they need to address, as Coach Gardiner pointed out. She said,“The team needs to improve shooting – we have been having a hard time getting the shots on net.”  This season, lowerclass students will continue to learn about the sport broadly, while upperclass students will work on technique, precision in shooting, and defensive strength.

Coach Hinck hopes to accomplish immediate goals through practices focused on water-polo-specific skills, rather than simply on swim sets. Not only can the team count on each other in the pool as teammates, but they know they have each others’ backs as friends, too – a bond that adds value to the skills learned in practice. Lim said, “The biggest thing [I will take away from] the water polo team is the friendship. We all love each other very much.”