By Hannah McDonald

Sports Editor

Winning the water polo district championship doesn’t seem real, said senior Paz Martinez-Villela.

“My freshman year I didn’t even know what water polo was, so the first year of it being [officially] UIL and we’re undefeated (in district) champs; it just doesn’t feel real,” Martinez-Villela said.

The girls varsity team won the district and bi-district championship after defeating seven teams. They won their final game 19-0 Sept. 15 at Southwest High School. The boys varsity team went 3-7 in district.

They lost to Harlingen in the area playoffs.  The boys qualified for the area playoffs as well, finishing fourth in the district.  They lost to Harlingen South in the area competition.

Sophomore Nikolay Quinones on the boys’ team scored a career high of 53 throughout the season, and sophomore Logan Cornelius had 128 saves. Quinones joined the team as a freshman. 

 “Originally I was a diver, and my dad got me into that,” Quinones said. “And I was gonna do that here, but I switched to swim and fell in love with it.”

Martinez-Villela has been swimming since her freshman year.

 “I got into swimming because I tried out for softball and soccer, but it didn’t work out, and I don’t like running,” she said. “Swimming just felt like the easiest thing because I had a pool in my backyard, and I’ve been swimming in it as long as we lived there.”

Water polo teams are composed of seven players playing four quarters that are each six minutes long. Teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team’s goal that looks like a soccer goal above the water. Each team has six field players and one goalie with up to seven substitutions per team. Every game is played in deep water, so players have to be in great shape to swim up and down the pool.

 Competition pools are 8 to 12 feet deep, and athletes do an eggbeater kick to stay up on top of the water.

Marcus Martinez, the water polo and swim coach since 2005, said anyone who wants to play water polo needs to be a strong swimmer first. 

The new status as an official University Interscholastic League sport has benefitted players, he said.

“It allows our kids a chance to represent their high school playing a sport they love,” Martinez said.

Not many people knew about water polo, Martinez-Villela said. 

“People still don’t know about water polo, and because it’s UIL now, more schools are having it. It sucks for teams that have already known about it because it’s just like trying to introduce everyone to a completely new sport every time we talk to them.” 

   Now that the season is over, the team will focus on conditioning to get faster and build skills. Anyone interested in playing water polo should contact Coach Martinez for more information.