Dougherty Valley Boys Water Polo Preview: Building a Competitive Program

School: Dougherty Valley 

Sport: Boys water polo

Coach: Ryan Sheehy

2009 record: 7-14

Key returners: George Wu, John Aiello and Gurmaan Bhatia

Top newcomer: Michael Kane

Quote: "We need to really drive home the fundamentals of water polo in order to be successful this season" –Coach Ryan Sheehy

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Looking to improve upon its record from last season, the boys water polo team at Dougherty Valley High is taking practice more seriously than ever.

Second-year head coach Ryan Sheehy has taken notice to the added enthusiasm and is excited for the upcoming season.

"The team compared to last year has a much better work ethic during practice," Sheehy said.

It will be seen if its hard work in practice will result in a successful regular season in the Diablo Foothill Athletic League.

Despite losing many players from last year's team to graduation, Sheehy said the team is well equipped with underclassmen from last year.  

Sheehy expects seniors George Wu, who plays hole-set, and Gurmaan Bhatia, who is the team's goalie, to fill the roles as leaders on the team.

"I really want to be able to lead the team," Wu said.  "Gurmaan and I are some of the few seniors on the team and we want to take the leadership role and send the team off right."

Bhatia expects the same from himself.

"I'm looking forward to improving the team as a whole," Bhatia said.  "Really developing a program that the coming years water polo players can look forward to."

Both Wu and Bhatia said that they'd like this year's team to be able to create a better sense of unity.

"My goal for the team is to just improve upon our game, our unity and have better pool sense," Wu said.

Other players like junior John Aiello said they are really looking forward to playing more games than last year.

"This season I'm looking forward to going to a lot of tournaments," Aiello said.  "Hopefully we can finish with a better record than last season."

Sheehy said he too hopes to finish with a better overall record than last year, however he realizes that the program is still in the building stages.

"This year we are trying to get everyone up onto the varsity playing level, building from what we did last year and continuing our growth," Sheehy said. "We need to really drive home the fundamentals of water polo in order to be successful this season"

"My goal for this team is to do better than last years," Bhatia said.

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