Photo by: Jacob Rokeach
History was made last Wednesday night at the DU aquatics center, although it wasn’t made by any member of a DU swim team, or any member of the DU Athletic’s Department.
Neither was it made by any athletes receiving any financial benefits or any media recognition.
This history was made by a group of DU students competing in a sport that is not often recognized in the mainstream sporting world, the only sport in which the players are never allowed to touch the ground.
The sport is water polo, and last Wednesday marked the first time ever that a DU team has ever competed in the sport.
The Pioneers’ inaugural club water polo season began triumphantly with a dominating victory over the Colorado School of Mines.
Outplaying Mines from start to finish, the Pioneers’ coed team put frequent shots on goal, scoring often and running the score up so high that the officials stopped keeping score after the lead rose to18-4.
This slaughter that DU visited upon to Mines may come as a surprise to some expecting the Pioneers to struggle as they build a team, but to team vice president Lindsay Thompson it wasn’t.
“We actually have a lot of people who have a lot of experience,” Thompson, a senior, said. “Most of our players either played water polo in high school or were swimmers.”
With the majority of the team’s players coming from California, as Thompson did, many of the Pioneers come from one of the only states in the US that has official high school water polo.
This helps the Pioneers to be able to build a program in Colorado, a state where water polo is basically unheard of.
“The biggest struggle that we have is that there aren’t any feeder programs here,” said Ben Kincses, a sophomore who grew up playing water polo in his native Hungary. “Its hard to get people to come out and play if they never have before.”
In fact, DU has very few first-time players on its team, but those who are have some experience in swimming.
Senior Geoffrey Michener, a swimmer in middle school, played in his first ever water polo game Wednesday, scoring a goal and adding an assist.
“Water polo’s a great sport,” said Michener. “Its a lot of fun to get in the water and hit people and try to score goals, rather than just swim laps.”
Many Pioneer players agree with Michener’s assessment of water polo as a game for people who enjoy swimming but get tired of the monotonous practices.
“Water polo is a great sport for people who have gotten burnt out in swimming and want to try something new with the skills they already have,” said Kincses.
Though the Pioneers have started the season well, they have fairly modest goals as a team.
“We basically just want to keep people interested and coming,” said Thompson. “We would really like to play well enough to get invited to some tourneys and into a league for next year.”
If the Pioneers keep playing well, Thompson said, they could have a chance to join a water polo conference that includes top schools such as the University of Arizona, University of New Mexico, and Wednesday’s opponent Colorado School of Mines, among others.
For now, though, the Pioneers plan to play games against local and regional teams, that might include playing some NCAA Division I teams.
The Pioneers will look to stay unbeaten as they play instate rival University of Colorado at home on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
