The GBS women’s water polo ended their season in third place at Sectionals, the highest ranking the women’s team has ever earned in GBS history.
According to head coach Chris Tomsheck, the 2013 season was the most successful women’s water polo has ever had a GBS and their success can be attributed to teamwork, especially from the seniors.
“[Their success] came from hard play along with the six outstanding seniors this year,” Tomsheck said. “[They] really stepped up to the plate and played really well as a very cohesive team.”
The ladies notched the program’s first ever Sectional victory against Prospect. Their playoff run ended in the following round with a loss to Loyoal, giving them a third place finish.
On the road to Sectionals, the team placed sixth at the CSL conference meet which was a surprise, according to captain Anne Edwards.
“Conference didn’t go how it expected to, but we were missing our goalie so we knew we would do better at Sectionals,” Edwards said.
According to captain Jessie Kerndt, though conference didn’t go as expected, they still were able to effectively communicate throughout each game in the season.
“I think just working together and knowing where we were going to be in the water, we don’t need to necessarily look at somebody to let them know you’re going to pass to them was our strength,” Kerndt said.
However, according to captain Sarah Grieve, a constant issue was each girl being hard on themselves when a team was seemingly overpowering.
“Every team has this problem, but we sometimes we got discouraged during games once we started to lose like at the beginning,” Grieve said. “You could see mentality go down a lot and towards the end of the game; it’s just hard to keep going when it’s rough.”
According to Tomsheck, though they lost the Loyola game, Edwards and Kerndt received All-Conference Honors, and Edwards landed a spot on the first All Sectional team. Kerndt and senior Maggie Dietrich earned second All-Sectional team honors.
The team will be losing six seniors, including key players Edwards, Grieve, Kerndt, and Dietrich. But, according to Tomsheck, next year’s team will still be well-rounded and prepared to fill those shoes.
