For a team that has already played 10 games this season, the women’s water polo team might finally be ready to play a game at full strength.
The Warriors (2-8) will show how good they are when completely healthy at this weekend’s Ventura Tournament.
The Warriors will be one of nine teams playing in the biggest tournament of the year.
“Ventura will be our biggest tournament this year and should be a lot of fun, especially now that we are going to have our full team,” Ashley Stanbury said.
Coach Corey Stanbury is eager to see how well the team is going to play now that it’s healthy.
Stanbury also added that this will be a good opportunity to see how the women will play in the tournament that will have various talented teams participating in it.
The squad is looking forward to getting back some of its firepower just in time for the tournament and the final remaining conference games.
“It will be nice to see a full team because it’s hard to make progress as a team when you are missing key players every game,” Stanbury said. “Since it’s a big tournament, we will play a few games and hopefully the women can begin playing the best they can.”
After the Ventura Tournament, the women will set off to play at Mt. SAC Wednesday at 3 p.m. in a match of conference foes.
It is a game that the women feel confident about, now that Melanie Jordan will be coming back from her infected kidney.
Jordan figures to be a major boost to the morale for the team, as it will add extra energy for a push to the final month of the South Coast Conference games.
Mt. SAC is struggling this year with a record of 5-6, but they still have a very competitive team.
“Mt. SAC is a pretty decent team, and the game can go either way, but if we have our full team, we can beat them,” Kelly Lancaster said.
Last Wednesday, the Warriors came off their longest game of the season as they lost to Pasadena City College in overtime, 8-7.
The game might have been a shot in the arm for the women, as they now feel they are capable of playing good water polo.
The women’s water polo team is gaining more confiedence as the season continues, and it shows because it is becoming a closer unit.
“The game with Pasadena City was very intense, and it was unfortunate that we lost, but we all feel that we played as a team for the first time,” Emmaline Delio said.
“Our communication was the best all year, which made everyone play better.”
Besides not having Jordan in the Pasadena City College game, the Warriors lost Laura Lizarzaburu.
Lizarzaburu was ejected from the game after picking up her third major foul in a very physical game.
Pasadena City College kept on frustrating the the EC women with their borderline dirty tactics.
“Pasadena City was very brutal under the water and some players were getting frustrated, but that is how the game goes sometimes,” Stanbury said.
“Games like those make the team tougher and hopefully we can play them again this year,” he added.
While the women are getting healthier, they are also getting better in play, which the women point to their coaches in helping to do so.
“Stanbury is starting to have us practice more on plays than on conditioning and is writing more on the white board, which helps us learn a lot easier,” Delio said.
“Our assistant coach Monica Lizzaraga-Papke gets in the pool and runs plays with us which helps us a lot,” Delio said.
For the veteran players, the improvement of the new players is comforting to see because they now know they can count any of them to help win games.
The women’s water polo team has struggled this year with inconsistency, but has been progressing each week espeically the newcomers.
“The new women are starting to play better with the returning players and it’s great to see that, because we now feel we are a real team,” Lancaster said.
