By Renata Terrazzan

Swim, shoot, and score! This year’s women’s water polo team, the Lady Cobras, is filled to the brim with talent and enthusiasm, and the women are looking forward to having a rewarding season. At present, varsity boasts a record of 3-1, a difficult feat in this sport.  And in fact, the junior varsity team won 11-12 against Birmingham Seaholm on April 3, bringing their season record to 2 wins and 7 losses.

The water polo team is an all district team, meaning that it is made up of the girls from Walled Lake Western, Central and Northern. “However, our team isn’t that big,” said Central junior and team member Madison Campbell. There are only 12 girls on the junior varsity and varsity team combined. The girls have separate games for junior varsity and varsity but they are considered the same team.

The first matches were a little shaky, varsity losing 4-10 and junior varsity also losing 0-4  against Chelsea High School. But the girls will surely bounce back as the season goes on. In fact, Campbell says, “so far we are kicking off the season well.”

In addition to regular season games, the team also competed in the Hotel Water Polo Invitational Tournament. They won 2 out of the 4 games and the Lady Cobras played against four teams. Mikayla Matteson, freshman and team member said, “It was fun to play against teams that were ranked at our level, and to bond with my teammates over the two tournament days.”

The girls practice every day from 5pm to 7pm at Central. Their practices use the specialized water polo balls and floating goals.  “Training has been tough,” said Matteson. “We do a lot of sprints up and down the pool to prepare us for our games.” During practice, they focus on making the best possible shots and passes as well as perfecting their defense, and learning new plays.

All the girls are very excited about participating in the team.  It’s Matteson’s first time on the team and she describes her experience so far as, “Awesome! This season has been so awesome, I’m so glad I joined the team and got to meet all the girls!”  And also the whole experience has been fun, even the tiring practices, “We have a lot of fun learning new skills and improving our game results.” And it seems like this enthusiastic team is ready to lead the Lady Cobras into a victorious spring season.