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The men’s water polo team has endured an exhausting season, but now that the water lies still in the pool they can say they acted like true athletes and kept playing till the end.
Finishing the season with a loss to Grossmont, making their final record for the season 5-12, the Gentlemen Jags pulled themselves out of the water and turned to look back at the semester.
“This season was a roller coaster ride,” said Coach Jorge Ortega. “Just like any season, you have your highs and lows. But at the end we feel good about the way we finished the season. We played with heart and non-stop effort.”
All season the Jags have been plagued with a small reserve bench which, despite the gusto of the mostly freshmen-team, took its toll.
“Our low numbers on our bench may have been the most difficult part of our season,” Ortega said. “We finished the season with one reserve player. Having all freshmen with only one sophomore it is a difficult adjustment from high school to junior college. The intensity and the physicalness (sic) of the game, to go along with the longer quarters is a lot to ask of our players to play a full game without rest.”
And play they did.
After a seven-game losing streak, the Jags pounced Palomar with a victory that turned the team around.  Mesa, Palomar and Southwestern College had remained tied up until that game, which was tailed by two more victories, and the win over Palomar gave SWC the lift it needed, said Ortega.
“This was a great game and one that will not be forgotten anytime soon,” he said.
But the battle on the scoreboard did not come without casualties.
“It’s not only physical, it’s mental,” said Emmanuel Gambino, second meter driver, who spends most of the game being shoved beneath the turbulent surface of the pool. “The whole point of the defense is to crash before I can get the ball and they’re pretty quick to crash.”
Aside from their wealthy reserves, some of the Jags opponents also have a size advantage.
Alejandro Castaneda, goalie, said that defending the goal box when a player is right in his face is one of the hardest aspects of the game for him.
“It’s one of those ‘oh, shit’ moments and I just try to get as big as I can,” said Castaneda.
Fanning out his arms like a mighty bird protecting its nest, Castaneda came to the defense of the goal box more often than the Jag’s offense would have liked.
But Castaneda did not back down and neither did his teammates and they set their own mark on the season.
“We constantly faced fresh guys off the bench from other teams, we would hang tough through most off the game and eventually teams would wear us down,” said Ortega. “This year I received many complements from other coaches on the way we played this season. Other teams knew they could out-swim us but we kept playing water polo.”