Female Water Polo Player Files Title IX Complaint After Alleged Sex Assault in Pool

A former water polo player from McHenry and her family have filed a Title IX complaint with the U.S. Education Department of Civil Rights after the teen, who played on the boys water polo team, was allegedly sexually assaulted by a male opponent during a high school game last year, according to ESPN.

ESPN’s Outside the Lines featured Rebecca Dabrowski, 19, in a “disturbing report” that aired Sunday. The sexual assault allegedly occurred while Rebecca was playing for the McHenry boys water polo team during a game against Libertyville High School in May 2015. She told ESPN a male opponent, who had ridiculed her in a previous game, groped and touched her inappropriately under her suit under the water in the pool. The unexpected actions caused Rebecca to scream.

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“You could tell from the sound of her voice it was her. It was an awful scream. It’s the kind that pierces through a mother,” Gretchen Dabrowski, Rebecca’s mother, said in the ESPN report.

Rebecca told her coaches what happened following the incident and filed a police report the next day. The male player told police he did not remember touching Rebecca inappropriately and, if he did, it was an accident. Police concluded the actions were unintentional and no one was arrested, according to the ESPN report.

“It destroyed me because he was going to get away with it. He wasn’t going to learn his lesson,” Dabrowski said. “All I wanted was for him to go to counseling. I just wanted to make sure this wasn’t going to happen to another woman.”

The U.S. Education Department of Civil Rights is investigating the Title IX complaint to try and determine whether Rebecca’s high school, the alleged perpetrator's high school and the Illinois High School Association acted appropriately following the incident, according to an ESPN report on Monday.

Dabrowski currently plays water polo for Monmouth College.

More via ESPN’s Outside the Lines

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