Women's water polo looks to repeat as champs at Easterns

The Princeton women's water polo team may have had to wait a weekend or two more than it would have liked, but its chance to shine is finally here.

The Eastern Championships begin tomorrow, with the Tigers going up against a determined Harvard squad in the first round.

The Tigers are currently riding high on the momentum created by their dominating runs through both the Eastern College Athletic Conference and Southern Championships, both of which they won. They hope to extend that list of championships to three this weekend against the very competitive eight-team field arrayed against them. Always-dangerous Eastern rivals Mich-igan, Indiana and Massachusetts are among those teams, so the Tigers expect this trophy to come a little harder than the last two.

"It's going to be very difficult to win this weekend," sophomore Jenny Edwards said, "but we're very confident."

This year's Easterns should be a marked departure from last year's, in terms of competition. Last year, the Tigers encountered real opposition only once, in the finals against UMass.

"This year it's much more unpredictable," said Edwards. The team has been working hard to ensure that there are no surprises come tomorrow. Every day, from 4:30 to 6:30, they run drills and scrimmage at DeNunzio Pool, working on various situations that might arise during the tournaments. The attention has gradually moved from heavy-duty training and conditioning to getting the players mentally prepared for a championship run.

"We've been working on practicing specific plays, like what to do in man-up situations," senior co-captain Alina Brown said. "The focus has been more on strategy, and less on swimming."

Sophomore Cassie Nichols described the team's attitude as "more and more excited and nervous. This is the most important tournament of the season, and we are all well aware of how well we must play."

The winning team of Easterns goes to the NCAA Championships in California, where it will square off against the champions of the Northern and Southern California divisions, as well as one team with an at-large bid, thus making a four-team draw. The at-large team will also likely be from California.

Achieving their stated goal of reaching Nationals would cap a remarkable season, in which the Tigers have constantly improved from game to game.

"Up until Southerns, I would have said we had a hard time coming together as a unit in the water," said Nichols. "But now that doesn't seem to be a problem, and we have never played better. We are peaking at the perfect time."

"If we play to our capability, we will win [Easterns] for sure," Brown agreed. "Everyone is contributing right now."

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Brown coined the acronym "A.C.T." to embody the Tigers' three goals to focus on in the tournament. Aggressive, Confident, Thinking. If the Tigers can follow those guidelines, and live up to their own expectations, they can expect a NCAA bid very shortly.