The men's and women's water polo club teams have completed another year of competition and decided to make some changes in their program in the interest of more success next year.
The men, who fielded two teams for their fall season, are aiming for a national championship in the coming year, and the women will look to build on advances they have made in their first two years as a program.
During the fall, the traditional season for the men, the two men's teams were joined by a team of women who competed in the men's league. Then in the spring, the women competed in the women's league while the men scheduled informal games to keep in top form.
The women's team was hurt by a lack of bodies. It only had nine members, but it did win a fair number of the games it played in April against clubs from schools like Mount Holyoke, the University of Massachusetts, Harvard, Queens and MIT.
The women will miss the leadership of their two senior captains next year when Peedie Barucchieri and Annie Soutter move on, but a solid group of '97s and '98s return.
"We need a lot more freshmen," Stephanie Adamson '98 commented. "We had no freshmen this spring and that hurt us a lot. We didn't have enough women to make it to all the tournaments we could have."
Adamson said next fall the women will not field their own team in the men's league but will instead combine forces with the men's B team, becoming one of several coed B teams.
The men's program is looking forward to next season in anticipation of a return to the success it enjoyed in the 1994-95 season when it traveled to the national club championships and copped a third-place finish.
That is not to say that this fall's 1995-96 competitive season was not a good one; it was. The A squad was undefeated until it reached the national qualifying tournaments and the B squad posted a record of five wins and three losses.
The A squad was bolstered throughout the season by a solid core of experienced players who share a desire to win, and all but one member of that team will return next fall.
The one factor that did hold the team back was its schedule. It played in the Northern Division, the weaker side of the Eastern Water Polo league against Bates, Boston University, Bowdoin and Middlebury. In the fall, most of the games it played were against these teams, and it did not face tough competition until the qualifying tournament where it finished third.
This will hopefully change next year with the team's switch to the more competitive Southern Division of the league where it will face Amherst, Williams and Tufts, among others. The team members hope this will prepare them for the tough games at the end of the season.
"Last year our first competitive game was the in the Eastern Championships and consequently we were not ready," said Kevin O'Neil '97, president of the club.
The team has recently concluded spring practices and unofficial games that were played against strong schools it does not normally meet in the fall and has turned its attention to its goal of a national title next year.
