Augustana’s club water polo team competed in the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Heartland Divisions club water polo championship tournament hosted at Grinnell College on Nov. 3. The team came back in a nail biter with a game winning goal against Grinnell in triple overtime and a golden goal (first to score wins) to win the championship with a final score of 12-11.
The team is a completely student run organization that consists of both men and women water polo players. They have at least three tournaments a season, with three to four games being played each week against other teams in the CWPA. The team ranges from having years of water polo experience to having none at all.
“It is a student-run program, so everyone comes from different backgrounds,” First-Year Adrian Szczepanik said. “[The season] was all about learning to work as a team, taking all of our different strengths and putting them together. And once we were able to lock in on each play off our individual strengths, we were able to push back against Grinnell.”
The team has been steadily improving over the past couple of seasons. Last year, the team made it to the championship game, but lost by one point. The year beforehand, they placed third overall. To make it to the championship and finally win after years of coming so close meant a lot to the athletes that put their heart and soul into this team.
“It was surreal,” Junior President of the club Michael Steinbecker, said. “It was a lot of emotions. Last year, when we lost by one, I cried at the end of the game, and this year, I was pretty close. But to immediately have the team jump in and begin celebrating and to hear the cheers from the stadium, it was just a lot of good emotions, and this team really needed it, because it’s been a long season.”
To get to this point by the end of their season, the athletes put in many hours of hard work at ungodly hours of the night on nights when they still had to get up for class the next day. Club water polo was given the pool from 9 -11 p.m. to practice. At that time, they put in the work in order to bring the championship home to Augustana.
“We’ve been on each other’s throats [at practice], because it’s usually been a long day – people are excitable, people are tired, they’re ready to go home,” Steinbecker said. “They’re not always wanting to be at practice, which is true for every sport.”
The team’s perseverance through these long late night practices and the joy of celebrating together made the victory even more meaningful. Former President James Caprio has been with the club throughout his last four, now five seasons.
“I just remember sitting in a hotel room with that second place plaque last year, wanting to drop it out the window from three stories up,” Caprio said. “So when we finally won this, especially because of the context of the game itself, it was great to see everybody jump in the water and hugging and everything – I almost cried.”