Water Polo hits crest, trough in games

OC sinks Ohio Northern, almost upsets Kenyon over weekend

Over the weekend, Oberlin's Ichthyosaurs faced Kenyon College's nationally-ranked swimmers, Ohio Northern University's inexperienced team and Carr Pool's power outage. In its first water polo tournament, Oberlin's first-string team came back from an 11-1 deficit to almost beat Kenyon in a 12-9 defeat and out-played Ohio Northern to a 29-1 victory.

Due to power outages at Carr Pool, the tournament was stalled for about an hour.

Because of large numbers, Oberlin's team broke into A and B teams. The more experienced A-team went 1-1 in the tournament while the B-team lost both rounds. For a third round the teams mixed up and played each other.

The A-team trounced Ohio Northern. "We didn't have any weak points. Offense was working, we could have scored 80 points," said player-coach Mike Heithaus, OC'95.

Senior Eric Nordstrom said that the Ohio Northern game gave the team a chance to work on its offensive sets and plays. Rather than score on break-away after break-away the team "tried to set it up and score in an organized way."

According to Heithaus the goal distribution in the Ohio Northern game was even. Heithaus led the team with 13 points and he was followed by sophomore Wayne Miller's five. Six other players scored in the Ohio Northern game.

The B-team lost to Ohio Northern 7-5, losing on a two-point goal. "They had some really good strong plays," Nordstrom said of the B-team's players.

First-year Sarah Titus, who played on the B-team, said that they were well-matched against Ohio Northern. "We were equivalent skill-wise," Titus said.

Kenyon's reputation as exceptional swimmers intimidated Oberlin's players. "I think we got awe-struck," Nordstrom said.

Miller said, "We played like shit for the first three quarters … The guys on their team were huge."

Heithaus said, "When people finally realized that Kenyon wasn't superhuman the game began to turn around." After being outplayed for the first three quarters the team turned around the momentum and out-scored Kenyon during the fourth quarter.

Scoring in the Kenyon game was split between Heithaus' seven and Miller's two.

"We could have really reversed the score on them," Nordstrom said. He said that the team was tired and a little nervous - circumstances that resulted in cautious and not very smart playing.

According to sophomore Josh Davis, Kenyon's team was equal to Oberlin's in terms of experience. "It is fun to be well matched," he said.

The B-team faired even less fortunately against Kenyon. "It was totally fun. We got creamed," Titus said. She said that Kenyon's ability to sprint especially hurt the team. "Some of us are swimmers and we couldn't keep up," she said.

Titus also said that teams were less likely to gaurd her heavily because she is a woman. "It is nice. Other teams don't gaurd as hard so you get the ball," she said.

Nordstrom said that the games gave the Ichthyosaurs important experience. He said that many of the polo players are varsity swimmers, but they needed to "experience what a game was really like."

The University of Akron and Kent State University's teams, who had been invited, cancelled. But even with just three teams, Nordstrom said that there was no lack of experience and competition. "We were all really beat [at the end of the day]," he said.

"We are still young and inexperienced. At the end of the day everyone was ready to go home," Davis said.

Overall, team members felt good about its performance. "We definitely improved since we started playing - especially considering only four or five players on the team had ever played before," Miller said.

"I think overall we were pretty happy. We played well," Davis said.