Women's Water Polo: Rigler receives CWPA honors as squad goes 3-1 at Harvard

The No. 18 Tigers (16-1 overall, 4-0 CWPA South) started off the weekend with a game against host Harvard (8-5, 1-1). After a slow start that saw the team down 6-3 at halftime, the Tigers found their rhythm in the second half and outscored the Crimson 6-2 in the third and fourth quarters for a come-from-behind victory.

Their next game was the most anticipated match of the invitational, as it pitted two ranked opponents against each other. The two sides were tied after each of the first three quarters, and neither team had managed to pull away until San Jose State (12-7) scored the game-winning goal with a mere six seconds left in the game to hand the Tigers a 13-12 defeat.

“It never feels good to lose, but we didn’t feel too bad about the loss because we played really well,” senior defender Audrey Zak said. “It was a tough game and San Jose State is a good team, so while we’re disappointed we lost, we still felt good about the game.”

“It was disappointing to lose because being undefeated was exciting, but in terms of experience and what’s going to help us come Easterns, it was great,” junior center Saranna Soroka added.

The following day, the Tigers played Mercyhurst (3-7, 0-2) in a match that found them down 3-2 at the half, the second time during the invitational that the Tigers found themselves trailing after offensive struggles. They managed to regroup, however, and dominated in the second half to take the win 9-5.

The Tigers then finished the weekend with a dominant performance against Brown (7-6, 3-1), going up 12-1 at halftime before taking the match 18-8. The win included an amazing performance by sophomore utility Katie Rigler, who scored six goals in the match, bringing her total for the weekend up to 15. Her performance was enough to be named the CWPA Southern Division Player of the Week.

Despite losing for the first time this season, the Tigers still put on an impressive performance at the invitational, which extended their record to 16-1. At least seven Tigers scored in three of the four matches and five scored in the other. This depth has been one of the main reasons for the Tigers’ success this season.

“We’ve had eight or nine players scoring goals in most of our wins this season,” Zak said. “That’s really the strength of our team, that there isn’t really one player that our opponents can stop that will allow them to win, because even if they stop one of our players, we have five more girls ready to score goals. I don’t think you can really pin it on one person, I think we’re just a much deeper team this year than we have been in the past.”

“We’re not going into each match preparing to play for a specific team,” Soroka said. “We’re just looking to play good water polo and play the way we play, which is with good defense. We’re not looking to adapt based on what team we’re playing, but rather we try to force them to change.”

Both players have contributed to the Tigers’ success this season, but credit must also be given to the freshmen on the team, four of whom have already started at least one game.

“I think one of the reasons that we’ve had such a good season so far is that we’ve had a lot of players stepping up and scoring and being offensive assets, many of which are part of a really strong freshman class that came in,” Zak said.

The Tigers will not be in action again until March 17, when they will play in the Aztec Invitational in San Diego, taking on three nationally ranked opponents.