Royal High girls’ water polo makes run for playoffs
By Thomas Gase tgase@theacorn.com

Even though this season’s girls’ water polo team at Royal High is inexperienced, the team is ready to make another run at the playoffs.

Last year Royal made the semifinals in the CIF playoffs, upsetting Dos Pueblos High before losing to Agoura. This season the Highlanders will look to go past the semifinals, but the road to get there will be tough.

Royal brings back only one starter this season, senior Agnes Konopka, after losing five starters to graduation. The young team got a dose of reality last week when it lost to Agoura 172 in the first of two meetings this season.

“We need to get an identity on offense,” Royal head coach Matt Frazier said. “In the 17-2 game we scored two goals in the first quarter, and I actually thought we had a chance of winning the game or at least keeping it close. I was very disappointed with the rest of the game as we seemed to just give up after the first quarter.”

Although Frazier was disappointed in the effort against the Chargers, he’s been impressed with the early play of many on his team. One of those players is returnee Konopka, who’s had to show a lot of leadership this season for the Highlanders.

“She’s probably one of the best players in the league,” Frazier said. “As a senior I am looking for her to step up this season. She was a little shaky at the beginning of the year, but she’s been getting better. She is big and strong and can dominate in the water.”

Although Konopka said she still feels like a freshman, she does realize that her team has high expectations of her.

“I feel like there’s a lot of pressure on me this year, but I feel there has to be this year,”

Konopka said. “That is the role you have to play on a team as a senior.”

Konopka said she’s not yet decided at what college to play water polo, but she’s received offers, including one from Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Frazier has also seen great play from senior goalkeeper Brittany McKenney and junior Shannon Robertson.

“I’ve been surprised with how great Robertson has been playing early on,” Frazier said. “She’s a gritty and tough player. She seems to have improved a lot from last season. She’s the right player in the right spot this season.”

About McKenney, Frazier said, “She’s a really good goalie. I have to work with her on her emotions because she takes anyone scoring on her personally. She can’t block everything, and sometimes she doesn’t realize that it isn’t her fault when she gets scored on. She is just the last line of defense and she has to realize that.”

Except in the game against Agoura, Frazier likes what he has seen so far from the Highlanders’ defense.

“Our defense has actually been pretty good this year,” Frazier said. “If we can hold teams to seven goals or less, we should be winning games. We just need to get our offense going.”

McKenney agreed with her coach.

“I think our defense is awesome,” McKenney said. “If our offense and communication gets better, we really have a good team.”

Konopka also said the potential for this Royal team is great if that communication gets better. “We have a lot of promise on

this team,” Konopka said. “We have a lot of sophomores on this team that are very fast, but there has still been a lot of miscommunication on the team because we have a lot of newcomers. It’s going to take a lot of teamwork in order for us to win this year.”

Working on that communication has been tough, as the Highlanders currently don’t even have a home pool. For the next two weeks, repairs are being made at Royal’s home pool at Rancho Simi Community Park, forcing the team to practice and play at Newbury Park High. However, the Highlanders’ hopes remain high for a promising season in 2007.

“We don’t have a lot of experience on this team, and we are very young,” Frazier said. “We have a lot of potential though, and I think we’re going to do our best to continue our winning ways here.”