With the summer winding down and the school year fast approaching, the men’s club water polo team is already hard at work, beginning its “hell week” training a full three weeks before school starts.
As the defending national champions for the first time in the club’s history, the team is treading in unfamiliar waters, and the expectations for them to succeed have never been higher.
After completing a perfect 18-0 season last year, the team is looking to repeat the effort but will have to do so without the contributions of last year’s captain, Matthew Weiner, who graduated in June.
“Losing Matt was a big loss, but at the same time we got a lot of new guys,” third-year religious studies and history student Cameron Virjee said. “We have more than 30 guys showing up to practice.”
As one of the new captains this year, Virjee has already been working hard alongside co-captain and fourth-year political science student Caleb Greig to ensure that their new players acclimate quickly to the team.
Greig and Virjee deal with the responsibility of leading the team in two-a-day practices, while also handling behind-the-scenes tasks, such as setting up the tournaments, communicating with the Collegiate Water Polo Association, and housing freshmen during the weeks before school.
Even with the greatly increased amount of pressure, the team isn’t letting this affect its game and is confident heading into the highly anticipated season.
“We’re excited; we’re a lot faster than last year already,” Virjee said. “So we just need to get our communication down.
We’ve got the raw bits and pieces right now, and if we can put it together to make something cohesive, we’ll definitely have success.”
Part of the team’s confidence stems from the fact that coach Doug Merkel, last year’s CWPA Coach of the Year, is returning to the Bruins after choosing to attend law school at UCLA.
“It helps us so much that Doug is back,” Virjee said. “There are so many teams out there that don’t have a coach, and you can just tell how unorganized they are. He brings a lot of stability to the team.”
For Merkel, things couldn’t have worked out any better, as he acknowledges that there is a special bond he shares with the players.
“I’ve seen some of them grow up from freshmen to seniors and so when I was deciding where to go to law school, that was definitely a minor factor and influential in some degree,” Merkel said.
With their coach returning and a good number of freshmen and transfer students joining the squad, the Bruins seem to have all the pieces necessary for another successful season.
But the team realizes that as defending champions, they are always going to have a huge target on their back every single game.
“It’s going to be a lot harder this season, since we’re ranked No. 1; everybody else is going to be gunning for us and play their best against us,” Merkel said. “So we have to play even better than we did last year.”
He believes that the team’s growth throughout the years has definitely allowed for the rise in talent among the players. Now it’s only just a matter of bringing that talent together.
“We just all need to get on the same page and learn how to play as a team,” Greig said. “If we can do that, we’ll definitely be the best out there.”