 the studio. I'm your host Emily Merton and today's topic is life in the water or more specifically life as a water polo player. Today I have three talented athletes from Davis Senior High School joining me. They are part of the women's water polo team. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you. So first I'm going to start out just asking you guys your names, what year you are at school, and how long you've been playing water polo. So Carissa do you want to start? I'm Carissa. I'm a junior currently and I've only started this year. So I'm Moira and I'm a junior and I've been playing water polo since I was in fifth grade. Wow, a long time. What about you? I'm Kendall. I'm a senior. I've been playing water polo for about eight years. Wow, so you're a senior? Yeah. That means this is your last year. Yeah. Do you plan on doing water polo later like after high school? Yeah. It's different for every school and not all schools have water polo in college, but yeah I'm definitely looking into the recruitment like recruitment process and trying to play in the like college division one level. That's awesome. That's good. So Carissa you obviously have a different experience. Why did you start playing water polo? Well, originally some of my friends play water polo so they were like trying to get me into it and then I thought since I'm in high school high school is when you're supposed to like try out new things so it's like you might as well just join water polo to see what it's like. Yeah, was it worth it in the end? Yeah, it's really fun. What are some of the most difficult things that you've experienced like are there certain skills that were really hard to learn that everyone else already knew? Basically everything. I didn't know a lot of the strokes and like during practice a lot of my teammates would like help me with it like Moira would and then during the game it's just like keeping up and knowing what I'm supposed to do so I'm still learning. How's she doing Moira? She's doing great. It's like like honestly she's improved so much like she's so much faster and she's got such a fast shot. Awesome. It's like it's awesome. So if you want to start water polo and you're a junior just go for it because we've got people here that are loving it. So I know a lot of people don't know much about water polo like how would you describe water polo to someone who's never heard of the sport like a friend? Any of you have an idea? I guess like it's a physical contact sport and it's played in the water and you use your hands to throw a ball into a goal that's pretty big and the goal has a goalie so the object of the game is to put the ball into the goal. Awesome. Well it seems kind of like I don't know I see it as soccer in the water a little bit in a way so why don't we look at some pictures right to kind of give people a visual of what water polo is if they don't already know. So this is someone throwing a shot you guys want to talk about it? Sure. I think this is Sophia Dolan. No, maybe. It looks like a number four. It looks like a number four but either way they're making a pass and they're making a pass and it's looking pretty good. Yeah I noticed that they get their bodies really out of the water you guys have to tread water a lot huh. What about the next picture? Sure to get your elbow out of the water so it doesn't drag it down. Oh yeah that's a good idea. This is like defense right here. Yeah so she's defending she looks like she's about to pass it to the top three position so each position has a different number at the very top that's like the three spot is what it's called so basically what you try to do when you're blocking a pass is you go for their elbow because when your elbow drops you basically can't pass so she's kind of like interfering that way so instead of just going straight for the ball it's easier to reach for someone's elbow. Okay that makes sense that's interesting. Alright next picture. What's going on here? That's my sister. This is like an aggressive sport. Yeah. What are some rules? What are some boundaries? So yeah okay so the thing is it is aggressive definitely especially on I don't know the defensive side is usually more aggressive on the perimeter it's aggressive in when you're trying to get open people will grab you and pull you back and sometimes that's noticed by the refs and you can get kicked out if you're like in the wrong position and then there's the center position and the center defender which is like my position I'm a center defender so basically we're kind of like wrestling it out like in the middle the whole time trying to I'm trying to get in front of the other girl okay and she's trying to get her position and it's very yeah it's definitely very physical. Wow yeah it seems like you have to you kind of have to be in a different zone like wow that arm is like out there I think this is I think that's Sophia Yadol and again she's a sophomore. Okay well that's an interesting shot kind of shows how many people are in the water at once like from your team? Six field players and then there's a goalie. Okay awesome. Are there any more? One more. This is this is the goalie right? Yeah. She's passing it to the other side. What kind of role does the goalie play? I heard when I went to the game I heard counting like. Oh so when we're on defense they will call out the shot clock as it runs down to kind of let us know to kind of get ready to get back on to offense because we're not paying attention to that kind of stuff that they can see everything else that we don't see so for the people that usually the attackers that swim and counter out they need to know like kind of like time out when they can do that and just leave and get that advantage like down the pool. So there's a time limit for how long you can be on defense and offense? It's 30 seconds for is your offensive possession. Oh so the game goes pretty fast right? Yeah there's seven minute four seven minute quarters. Oh so that's that's kind of is it nice do you like that it's shorter? I know. It seems short compared to like a soccer game or a football game but like it's so intense and you're constantly going back and forth and like changing up what you're doing it's kind of like it's a lot like you feel like even if you're in for like three minutes you're like exhausted. Yeah I bet because you have to tread water so much like Carissa was that a struggle at first? Yeah I wasn't really good at treading water in the beginning and so one of the coaches had to like teach me but like now I know how to tread in the water. Yeah it's fine. Yeah does it come natural to you yet like how long would you say you could tread water for? Well the whole practice we basically tread water so like two hours. That's impressive. So practice do you guys do something other than swim during your practices? Do you guys have CrossFit or something? During practices we do different plays and then like on Tuesdays and Thursdays we do CrossFit. CrossFit? So it kind of why do you do CrossFit in addition to swim? It's kind of like you're exercising different parts of your body so it's like an extra strengthening like conditioning kind of thing because whenever in the pool we're working on speed and passing and shooting and just basic offensive plays and defense and all that but doing CrossFit kind of puts like an extra like element to like exercise you know like legs are important when you're treading water so like to build up that muscle we'll go to CrossFit and like do squats and lunges and like all those extra things to kind of like build up muscle because swimming isn't always the most like I don't know like for people that play soccer or like land sports usually they build up more muscle easier but for swimming like you're kind of lean like most swimmers are pretty like lean so it's just an extra way to kind of build muscle. That makes sense so with all these muscular water polo people and they're also aggressive do you guys ever like get injuries like I you know I see do the fingernail roll does that ring a bell where you're like what's with that Moira? Well you have to have your fingernails short so you can't like scratch anyone so that like you swim in and you just scratch someone because I mean don't want to scratch anyone. So do they check your nails before a game? Yeah in a tournament you'll get your nails checked once before like all of the games like once for the whole tournament but then like in a game like that they'll just check them and he's kind of like they feel good. That's strange but it's not something that's seen in other sports that's kind of funny. What about toenails? Do they check your toenails? I actually okay I have never been they've never checked my toenails before and one time my fingernails were cut and then the guy looked down at my toes and said I see your toes and you make me go cut them. Yeah if they're obviously long they'll point it out. So you nail scissors are essential in your bag when you're going to a game? Yeah usually people don't have them though and so like I've seen girls though it's so bad if they don't have nails clippers or anything they'll just like file them on the deck like rub their hands on the ground to just like kind of like dole them out so they feel like they're not as sharp so gross and so I hate it. That's so weird do you know if they have that same rule for guys? I think so I actually I can't imagine that they don't. Yeah the guys I don't think they like are worried as much about guys having long nails because guys don't usually have long nails. Yeah that makes sense. It's also I don't know it's not always for scratching like when you talked about injuries like one time I my fingernail would a little too long and my middle finger on my right hand got caught in a girl's zipper in the back so when she spun away from me it just kind of got hooked on there so not just safety of others but like you can get your nails caught on things so that's pretty scary. Water polo is a scary sport. No it seems like it's fun though right what are some misconceptions of water polo that like some of your friends who don't play kind of say about the sport that you would want to like dismiss? Well I mean it's definitely physical but it's not like people aren't usually physical on purpose like you're not gonna go in there and try and hurt someone like things happen like you'll get kicked but then no one's purposefully trying to hurt you so people might think oh water polo girls are like so aggressive like on purpose it's like no like it's just like a contact sport like a real contact sport and I don't know like some people when they're like watch a game they're like oh it's kind of boring and slow it's like well like our song our games are kind of blown out just because of where we are in our area water polo isn't as strong but like real water polo games are like so intense and like so cool and I just like it goes by really fast. I think they're pretty cool. Yeah when I watched it seems pretty cool I don't know do you guys have any how's your season going so far are you do you guys have any big games coming up? We just won the western states champion. Yeah we are out of tournament we got first place at the western states championship tournament and then we had our last home game last no two nights ago two nights ago. Tuesday night. And then we have one more game which is going to be our last league game and it's against St. Francis so that's like our big kind of rival game and it's our last individual game before it's section starts so that's kind of coming up and then the whole season I think Doug said we're like 19 and 6. Yeah 19 and 6 so if we win this next game against St. Francis it'll be like our 20th win of the season which is like why it's like it's like kind of an extra factor. There's a lot of games how many games are there per week usually? Two. Wow you guys are like in the water so much huh? What do you do off season? Swim. So you guys are always in the water that's kind of funny. Basically I mean yeah there's club year round and we just don't do it during the fall because we have high school but basically after high school we'll have like a couple weeks off and then we go and start club again and then for high school the swim seasons in the spring so we'll kind of do club in the winter and maybe a little bit in the spring and then we'll just start swimming. Alright yeah awesome you guys are in the water a lot. So last kind of thing why do you guys stick with water polo? Why do you love it so much? Carissa. Oh well it's just my first year so I don't know everyone's really nice and it's like I'm learning something new and it's really fun and like people always ask me about it like I don't know much about it because I just started but it's so fun to like tell them like oh yeah I do this sport and you know come watch a game and stuff like that. That's awesome do you think you'll do it next season? Maybe probably. Awesome what about you Moira? I think that I just really like the team sport like working with the team and just being able to be part of it and have that source of friends and being able to like play a sport and stay fit with it. Yeah awesome. Yeah all of those things basically I played since I was little and it's just always kind of been like a big part of my life my whole family is a part of it and not just I don't know like the team aspect is obviously really important and it's kind of taught me a lot but just like the whole water polo like culture like no matter where you are like everyone's so close and we're all like kind of brought together with water polo everyone like we help each other out like even from we have friends on like other teams of other high schools and like Stockton and stuff and we see them and it's just like you know you're just kind of connected with all these people just like through this like one sport and it's not a big sport so there's not that like oh you I don't know like if you're trying to play in college like it's harder to get like to that level with like basketball or something it's super competitive but water polo it's like it's still you're doing this like really amazing thing and you can feel confident about your sport but it's not like a basic like yeah it's just different. Yeah I get what you're saying it's something that anyone can really start anytime which is kind of obvious with Karissa starting new and loving it and doing such a good job so thanks so much for telling us all about water polo if you want to know more about them they have a little team run Twitter page which is twitter.com slash dhs women's wp and it's just people kind of post their pictures and update on how games are going I follow it kind of cool so yeah thank you for joining us today girls I had a lot of fun thank you for watching in the studio if you want to watch this episode online you can go to dctv.davismedia.org or you could find us on YouTube at Davis Media Access thanks so much for joining me I was your host Emily Martin and I hope you have a great day