Seconds, please
Women much improved in second tourney,
excited to play everybody in Wisconsin

Feb 8-9, 2003 -- Northwestern's women's water polo team improved "100 percent" in its second tournament of the year, but still finished with many things missing against strong Big Ten teams.

After going 0-3 last week, the women's team won its first game of the season 16-8 over Eastern Michigan, and it lost in overtime 7-4 to Notre Dame.

However, in games against conference rivals Michigan State, the tournament's host, and a rematch against Purdue, Northwestern lost 12-6 and 10-4.

Still, captain Lael Fisher sees nothing but open water for the Wildcats to improve, especially compared with last year's team that finished fifth in the Big Ten Conference Championships.

"Last year when we went to the same exact tournament (at Michigan State in early February), we did a lot better this year than we did last year," Fisher said.

One reason for the improvement was the implementation of an offensive system. With blazing team speed as Northwestern's strength, the new system relies on a rotating offense, instead of most players sitting around the perimeter, as the team did last week at Fenwick.

"We improved a lot on our rotating offense and clearing out on the driver," said captain Amalia Aleck. "We usually play with one hole set, but we have a really fast team this year, so we wan to draw out kick-outs."

Northwestern defeated Eastern Michigan 16-8, lost to Notre Dame in overtime 7-4, to Purdue 10-4, and to Michigan State 12-6.

All hands on deck
For Northwestern's next tournament, at Wisconsin February 15-16, the women's team intends to send two teams, an A and a B team. Northwestern has never split in at least the last three years, said Aleck, a junior.

While only 15 players traveled to Michigan State, every player available on Northwestern's 28-women roster will attend and play at Wisconsin.

Each squad is scheduled for four games each, so every player will jump in for a significant amount of playing time.

"Madison is a really fun place to play, and to get everyone in," Aleck said. "I told (women's coach) Chris I want to play a piece in every single game, tell people I played in seven or eight games in one weekend… We've never tried playing with two teams. We'll see how it goes. I'm excited. There's a couple of new people who need to get some playing time."

Most players on club women's water polo teams swam in high school and have no water polo experience until college. Even though on paper or from the pool deck water polo can be a simple game, swimming in the water and understanding the game's many intricacies to join an elite level of play requires experience in games and scrimmages.

"We will have a lot of games to play," Fisher said. "This will be a great experience for a lot of girls to play, to learn the game. It's going to be a good little tournament."

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