The boys’ varsity water polo team continues to struggle early in the season after losing two consecutive games last week by one goal each.  

  “We’ve lost the last five games by a total of six goals, and we had a big lead and squandered it against Royal, so that was frustrating,” Head Coach Larry Felix said.

Still, the players remain focused on their upcoming schedule.

“The start doesn’t change things,” Maxx Bricklin ’09 said. “If anything, it showed us our weaknesses and helped us improve before league starts.”

Felix sees a silver lining in the team’s losing record as well.

“At least Foothill was a good stepping stone because we were down 5-0, and we got it to overtime,” he said. “We lost, but it was a big step forward; these guys have a lot of pride and a lot of drive.”

 While last year’s squad was mostly senior-driven, this year’s team relies heavily on juniors and sophomores.

“Last year some younger guys contributed, but there were a lot of senior and junior starters,” Billy Evashwick ’08 said. “This year, we’re looking to a lot of the younger guys to step up and play roles.”

Their lack of experience, Evashwick said, may be part of the issue.

“This group has never played together before,” he said. “In the past, we’ve all known each other from club teams, but this year, we’re still trying to figure out how to get into a groove as a team.”

While Felix believes that the team does lack experience, he thinks the older players are responsible as well.

“We do have some young guys, but this group’s been playing together since the summer,” he said. “Right now our problem is that we have guys that are trying to do too much. They’re getting away from the system.”

Though the team has already lost more games than it did in the entirety of last season, Evashwick insists the team’s goals haven’t changed.

“We’re not getting down,” he said. “We didn’t start the way we wanted to at all, but we’ll get there. We’ll keep getting better, and we still expect to win league.”

That theory will be tested when the team plays Loyola in an away game tomorrow afternoon in their first league game of the season.

“Loyola is always a huge game,” Bricklin said. “But every game is our biggest. We just have to win. Losing isn’t an option.”