Water Polo 101

The tournament’s name says it all: No Club Swimmers Invited.

It’s a high school water polo event where winning isn’t the only thing. Here, it’s about learning, laughing and building for the future.

And there is quite a bit to learn.

Girls’ water polo is one of the fastest growing sports in the Southern Section, having added more than 70 teams over the past three years.

But many girls are entering the sport with little or no swimming experience. These are the players that make up the teams in the NCSI tournament.

Watching them, you understand what it means to start from the beginning and the growing pains involved. You see players developing skills right in front of you and cheering their accomplishments, win or lose.

“We don’t really care if we win or not,” said Edie Bradfield, a sophomore at Santa Ana High. “We’re a new team, nobody really expects us to go out there and win right off the bat. We just want to learn the game and have some fun.”

The teams in the NCSI tournament are the ones routinely on the losing end of scores such as 17-1, 20-3 or 22-2.

But still, they laugh and smile most of the game and often congratulate each other with hugs, not handshakes or high-fives, when the game is over.

The two-year-old NCSI tournament, held in January at Santa Ana Valley and Saddleback highs, allows players and teams with little or no experience a break from playing teams stocked with experienced club swimmers.

For some, it even means a chance to win for the first time.

“Most of these teams play in their league and get their butts kicked every game,” said Fred Lammers, Santa Ana Valley coach and tournament director. “Imagine a basketball game where one team could run and the other team had to walk the whole game. That’s what these girls face, teams just fast breaking all up and down the pool on them.

“Here, they are allowed to play against teams of their own skills.”

The quality of play and skill level at the NCSI tournament are certain to make water polo fundamentalists cringe. Goalies shriek when shots come their way, others close their eyes and duck while sticking their arms out attempting to block a shot.

Shooters fumble with the ball, which often slips out of their hand when they cock for a shot.

But the NCSI tournament has proved a valuable opportunity for the teams involved to learn and practice.

“There are coaches out there literally hunting around for teams they can play with,” Lammers said. “They don’t want to play Irvine and Marina and Villa Park.”

Unfortunately for some of the less-skilled teams, they must meet these powerhouse teams in league play. Santa Ana Valley, for instance, plays in the Century League with Villa Park and Foothill, among the top teams in Orange County.

Many of the better players who have cultivated skills for years on the summer club circuit, are more than willing to help their less-experienced peers.

“I kind of try to help them out whenever I can,” said Kristyn Pulver a two-time All-Southern Section selection for Villa Park. “At the beginning [of the game], I just go at it like a normal game, but as the game goes on I start feeling like I should show them some things.”

The lessons are often through experience, rather than verbal instruction.

“If a girl does something to me, I remember it,” said Tashina Gonzalez, a beginning player at Santa Ana. “Then I’ll try and do it later in the game.”

Santa Ana, Ocean View and Saddleback play against defending Southern Section Division III champion Rosary in the Golden West League.

Final scores with double-digit deficits are not uncommon for these teams, especially at Santa Ana where girls’ water polo started just this season.

“We’re trying to get good,” said Gonzalez, a junior. “And if we can take just one single piece from each game and try to improve on that the next game, then we will get better.”

The learning experience is not limited to the novice teams, however. Top teams are generally aware when an easy victory is likely, so they map out areas they need to work on and use those games as live practice.

“If we ease up on them then it’s like we’re cheating ourselves,” said Kelly McNeley, a Rosary senior who has played water polo for 10 years. “We’re trying to win a CIF championship and every game is a chance to better ourselves. Against Santa Ana and Ocean View and teams like that we try to work on things that we’re not so great at.”

While easing up on the sport’s newcomers seems like a noble practice, those involved say it is neither necessary nor desired. Even when the scores get ugly.

“Obviously, nobody likes to lose like that,” said Olivia De La Riva, a first-year player for Santa Ana. “But I kind of look forward to those games. I always take something from them. If you don’t, then it’s like why did you play?”

McNeley can empathize, and says that players with De Le Riva’s attitude will go the farthest.

“Sometimes it comes to a point where I feel sorry for them,” McNeley said. “I started out there at one time but I believe that the best way to learn is though experience. There is no substitute for that.”

Starting From Scratch

Gonzalez heard about girls’ water polo from some friends on Saddleback’s team.

After a year of coaxing friends, and dealing with logistics, Gonzalez finally got approval for a team at Santa Ana High.

One of the players she rustled up was De La Riva, a senior who played field hockey for the Saints in the fall.

De La Riva had very little swimming experience when she joined the team.

“Unless you count those little plastic kiddie pools,” she said.

She struggled to dog-paddle her way to the middle of the pool during her first few weeks, but now routinely completes the 30 length-of-pool sprints required every practice.

“In the beginning I felt like I should quit,” De La Riva said. “I felt that I couldn’t keep up with everybody. But the thing that stopped me was the girls. They all said, ‘Just give it some time.’ I’m really glad I did.”

Lammers ran into similar situations at Santa Ana Valley, which started its program three years ago and has blossomed to a respectable 11-9 record this season.

“I had girls who had never put their face in the water before,” Lammers said. “I had to teach them how to swim before I could teach them how to play water polo.”

A Whole New World

Learning how to swim barely cracked the surface of what these players needed to learn about water polo.

To many of them, an egg beater was nothing more than a utensil found in the kitchen drawer, a cage was where you kept animals and, for all they knew, all the action took place above the surface of the water.

“About 70% of water polo is below the surface,” Ocean View Coach Tony Villalobos said. “That’s where these girls lack experience. The more they play, the more they learn how to pull and kick and cheat and everything else.”

Some are learning faster than others.

“The girls are a heck of a lot more vicious than the guys,” said Bradfield, who played with the Santa Ana boys’ junior varsity as a freshman. “The guys are kind of scared to touch you if you are a girl; they think you are going to break.”

Also surprising to many of the girls were the physical demands the sport places on their bodies.

“It is a total body workout,” De La Riva said. “Mind, legs, arms, everything. I thought I was in shape from field hockey but no way. I’m probably in the best shape of my life now.”

It Just Keeps Growing

Despite the nicks and bruises the players suffer, and even though beginning players are taking their lumps, girls’ water polo continues to grow at a tremendous rate.

Since becoming an officially sanctioned sport in 1996-1997, the number of teams has nearly doubled.

Schools are adding the sport every day--so many, in fact, that Southern Section officials cannot pinpoint the actual number of schools with teams.

Bill Clark, assistant section commissioner, estimates that more than 170 schools are playing. In its first year, there were fewer than 100 teams, only one division and no playoffs.

This year, there are four divisions--up one from last year--and a complete playoff structure in each division.

“It just picked up speed,” Clark said.

The number of females registered with the U.S. Water Polo Assn. has nearly quadrupled from 2,635 in 1995 to 9,766 in 1998, according to USWP Executive Director Bruce Wigo.

“You have to remember that only a small percentage of the players actually register,” Wigo said. “Only the ones playing on USWP clubs. Many of the high school players you’re talking about don’t register.”

At the Nike Water Polo camp at Pepperdine last summer there were the same number of boys as girls. Just three years ago at the same camp, there were 500 boys and 20 girls.

In 1993, there were 16 club and varsity women’s teams at NCAA schools. In 1998, there were 118.

“And it is increasing rapidly,” said Dan Sharadin, USWP director of collegiate programs.

They Are Not Losers

The rise in popularity at the NCAA level gives girls another reason to play: scholarships. But the players in the NCSI tournament are unlikely to earn one. Instead, they will go to those who have played for many years.

With victories rare and no scholarships on the horizon, beginning water polo players are left to look elsewhere to get something out of their sport. Perhaps it’s as simple as a player’s first steal, getting that first assist or scoring her first goal.

“When they score their first goal, they turn and look at you,” Lammers said. “You see that look in their eyes and then the coaches all look at each other because they know that kid is locked in. It’s the neatest thing to see.”

De La Riva knows. She has scored just once this season.

“That was pretty cool,” she said, a glimmer in her eye and a wide grin on her face as if it had just happened. “I liked that.”

And those moments, Santa Ana Coach Jason Hollingshead said, even during a lopsided loss, are the moments that make him forget about what’s on the scoreboard.

“We know we aren’t going to win many games,” he said. “But they have gone from virtually no skill, where they could barely swim, to passing shooting and driving. Not only that, but playing any sport builds character. I can’t ask for anything more rewarding than that.”