This weekend, the Dartmouth Women's Club Water Polo Team traveled down to Princeton, NJ to compete in the first annual Ivy League Water Polo Tournament. While it was a long drive down to New Jersey, Fanis kept one car entertained by alternating classic American and Greek music. After arriving safely and soundly, the team crashed, wanting to rest up for the start of the season the next day.
The team was in high spirits as we approached the beautiful DeNunzio Pool Saturday morning, ready to play well and climb the club team tournament bracket. In our first game of the day, the Big Green faced off against the Columbia Lions. With some great offense and amazing defense, Dartmouth got out ahead quickly with two goals from captain Cat Donahoe '15 (#10) in the first quarter. Two more Dartmouth goals came from Katie Lachance '15 (#3) and freshman Emily Robertson '18 (#17) before Columbia snuck a shot past Big Green goalie Shelley Wenzel '14 (#1). Other than a few lucky shots, Wenzel was an amazing goalie throughout the game; even after she took a shot to the nose, Donahoe was only in the cage for a few minutes before Wenzel was back. Offensively, Big Green goals continued to hit the back of the Lion's net, with additional goals coming from Caitlin Flint '16 (#6) - her first! - Margaret Rollins '15 (#2), and Meghan Christie '17 (#8). Overall, it was a great opening game for DWWP with a final score of 11-3.
The Big Green faced the Cornell Big Red next, again getting out to a quick lead and holding it there with fantastic defense; at the end of the first quarter, the score was 2-1 and by the end of the game it was 6-3. Although the team was tired, we were excited by how well we'd played for the first day of the first tournament of the season (and the first game of water polo ever for some, including freshman Adina Harri '18 (#5)!). After a wonderful dinner - thanks to the Rollins family! - we went back to the hotel to crash and prepare for facing varsity teams the next day.
Having won the club bracket, Dartmouth Women's Water Polo faced off against Division I Varsity teams on Sunday: first the host team Princeton, and then Harvard. While outmatched, the Big Green showed a lot of effort and character throughout the games; Dartmouth lost to Princeton 12-1 and Harvard 14-0. Still, happy and proud of their performance, the team headed back to Hanover to prepare for the upcoming weekend, the first conference tournament of the year. We hope to see some family and friends at Middlebury and thank you so much to our fans - the Rollins and alumna Grace McDevitt '14 included - who came out to support us this weekend!
