The Saline Hornets Women's Water Polo team is ending their regular season with an away game against the Ann Arbor Pioneers.
The Hornets are a young team, led by coach Katie Card. It's Coach Card's first year with the Hornets, coming to them after coaching defense and goalies at the University of Michigan. Her teaching skills show in the improvement this young team shows in the water. Her entire team has grown up this year, after returning only two seniors, only two players having more than one game of varsity experience under their belts, and appointing three junior captains.
The team looked like a young, fast team early in the season when they played larger, more experienced teams, being overwhelmed and beaten down both physically and mentally.
You can win with speed in water polo. You get to appreciate the sport after watching a few high level games in person. It's there that the need for physical and mental toughness kick in, and it's here that the Hornets have grown over the course of this season. Ann Arbor Huron is rated number two in the state. The Hornets lost, but were battling them until late in the game, even though they only had one reserve player coming off the bench, while Huron was able to send wave after wave of replacements against them. They repeated this against Skyline, rated number four in the state, a few hours later in the same tournament. This is a pretty incredible feat in such physically demanding sport as water polo, where you are in constant motion.
Their last game of the regular season is against an excellent Ann Arbor Pioneer team this Thursday at Pioneer, beginning at 6:00 pm. The Hornets squeeked out a win at the beginning of the year, and the Pioneers are looking for revenge. The Hornets need a win to go into the playoffs (beginning next week in Birmingham) with a decent seeding.
The state playoffs await.