The women's water polo team won its second consecutive New England Championship over the weekend at Wesleyan and qualified for the national tournament, which will be held at the beginning of May.
In the first game of the tournament the Big Green handily defeated Bates College 16-1. By the end of the first quarter the Big Green had already asserted a commanding lead of 5-0, and there were no signs of looking back.
It was not until the third quarter that the Bobcats were able to sink a goal on a last-second lob shot from the outside. By the end of the game almost every Dartmouth player had scored a goal and walked away from a nice warm-up for the afternoon.
Dartmouth played the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the second round of the tournament and again took a commanding lead of 4-0 in the first quarter.
Kristin Simunovich '06 played a key role in the Dartmouth defense by swimming the UMass hole-set up and down the pool in an effort to tire out the opposition's strongest player. Additionally, Dartmouth goalie Gillian Morshedi '04 created an impenetrable wall in the goal, shutting down the Minutewomen's offense.
Perhaps enjoying the significant lead prematurely and becoming initially over-confident, the team was humbled by the Minutewomen's comeback in the second and third quarters, bringing the score to a 7-7 tie at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
With three players on the edge of elimination from the game with two personal fouls each, the Big Green needed to play clean and aggressive. Samantha Klau '05 started the final quarter off with a bang, scoring from the hole during the first possession.
A few minutes later, the UMass hole-set, Kelly Chassy, scored her first and only goal of the game after rearranging the Minutewomen's offense to overcome the strong defense played by Dartmouth.
Regaining the lead, Klau put another one in the cage, followed by Lindsey Richardson '02 a minute later. The Big Green defeated UMass 10-8 and immediately began looking to the championship game against the Lady Bulldogs of Yale.
Yale is Dartmouth's primary rival within the New England league, but proved to be little competition for the Big Green. Dartmouth had not faced off with Yale since the home tournament Winter term.
During the regular season tournament the Big Green fell to Yale 7-9, but the team was also missing some of its key players, including Morshedi, three freshman swimmers and starting sophomore Lindsey Pryor.
Yale decided to spruce up its starting lineup as well with the addition of player, coach and graduate student Rachel Williams, former player for the University of Redlands in California.
The first quarter started off with a series of turnovers, shot clock expirations and failed attempts on the goal. The Big Green kept its cool and the points started to accumulate when Kelly Cameron '04 scored from the outside with just over two minutes to go in the first quarter.
The Bulldog defense learned that it could not slough on the hole-set because the Big Green team was strong and deep all around. Klau set a precedent for the rest of the game with an unexpected sweep shot from the hole with just 10 seconds to go in the first quarter.
The Dartmouth defense proved too tough for Yale's offensive plays. The Big Green shut out the Bulldogs' star player Acacia Clark for the entire game. In fact, Yale was unable to score at all until halfway into the third quarter, by which time it was too late to catch the raging Green.
The score was 6-1 entering the fourth quarter. Klau continued to sink shots from the hole, and Cary Telander '06 used her quickness and agility on a drive to sink her second goal of the game and finish the game off at 9-2.
"I was really impressed with the way the team played this weekend," co-captain Lauren Wondolowski '04 said. "Everything just came together and everyone stepped up to make it happen."
The women's water polo team now heads to Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisc. for nationals May 2-4.
The team goes in as the fifth seed based on last year's performance at nationals and will play Miami of Ohio in the first round. The team hopes to improve its standing from last year and continue the upward trend from the past four years.
