The Regals water polo team matched up against opponent Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in a SCIAC game at California Lutheran University on April 5.

Though the Regals demonstrated their talent in the game, CMS took a 10-point victory in the fifth SCIAC match of the season as they defeated CLU, 5-15.

Freshman Logan Young said that the team could have competed better.

“We definitely didn’t have our best game,” Young said. “We could have had more communication and focused more on fundamentals.”
Earlier in the week, CLU suffered a hard loss to Whittier College, leaving its current SCIAC record at 2-3, with its overall league record at 6-19.

The CMS Athenas scored the first two goals in the first quarter, but junior center Jordan Card found an open shot and scored the first goal of the game for CLU.

The score got closer when junior defender Adrienne Ingalla scored twice in between two more CMS goals, bringing the score as close as it would get in the game. At the half, the score stood 8-3 with the Athenas leading the Regals.

There were a couple of close shots by Card and sophomore utility Amanda Jones. The Regals played most of the game close to the CMS goal, allowing them to get some good shots, but unfortunately many either hit the post eleven shots were blocked by the CMS goalkeeper.

Freshman utility Sara Simpson also scored after three Regals made a hard push all the way down the pool to the five-meter line where Simpson took and made her shot.

In the last quarter freshman center Katelyn Dembowski scored the final goal of the game for CLU with an assist from junior attacker Kaylee Kastrup.

Sophomore goalkeeper Gina Merry had a total of five saves during the game, but was unable to fend off CMS player Candice Filippelli who led the scoring for the Athenas with a total of six goals.

The Regals have had a tough week of games, a common occurrence during this season.

Freshman attacker KC Brendel attributes the tough season in part to how young the Regals water polo team is this year. Brendel said that with nine freshmen, five sophomores and only three juniors, the team is relatively new at playing together.

“Because our team is so young, we have had a little bit of a struggle developing the strength that other teams, who have been playing together for a while have,” Brendel said. “I think this year will set us up to do really well next year.”

Young agrees that this season has already been a learning experience for years to come.

“Overall, I think that as a team we have grown together even if our record doesn’t show that,” Young said. “We’ve had some tough matches and it’s helped improve our team since we’re all young, but we’re all returning next year.”

As a senior member of the team, Card thinks that the Regals have done their best this season.

“We’ve played against a majority of Division I teams,” Card said. “It takes a lot of heart to keep playing against such difficult teams. Going up against such tough competition has prepared our team to an extent for SCIAC.”

The Regals have three SCIAC games before the SCIAC Championships in April. The next game is at Caltech on April 9 at 5 p.m.

Megan Callery
Staff Writer
Published April 9, 2014