Having dominated Northwest division opponents throughout the regular season, it was difficult for the women’s club water polo team to judge how well it would fare in the National Collegiate Club Championship. Were the players really as good as their undefeated regular season record made them out to be, or had their success been a mirage formed by a weak division?
The former turned out be true, as they finished third overall in the national championship, a fitting end to a very successful year.
‘”We were very pleasantly surprised by the results,” junior goalie Jessica Kragt said. “We were ranked sixth overall before the tournament, and were not expected to do as well.”
Kragt’s 11 saves were instrumental in the team’s first game of the tournament, a 4-2 win over 15th-ranked Texas on May 1. Her play earned her Player of the Game honors, though she was not the only Oregon player to make a strong contribution. Freshman Hilary Wilcox scored twice, while sophomore Katie Peront and junior Caitlin Hermann scored Oregon’s other two goals.
The Ducks’ inspired play continued the next morning as they cruised to a 6-1 victory over seventh-ranked Utah behind sophomore Beth Gordon’s three goals. Hermann, Wilcox and freshman Haley Vigeland provided the other three goals, and Kragt came up with eight saves in another strong effort.
“Katie Peront had all three assists for my goals,” said Gordon. “We clicked that game and it worked well.”
The win against Utah put Oregon in a semi-final showdown with second-ranked Notre Dame on the same day where the Ducks could not come up with an upset and lost 8-1. Junior Laura von Stockhausen came up with the Ducks’ lone goal during the first period, after which Notre Dame’s defense simply took over the game. Oregon did not score for the final 24 minutes of the game, and this time it was on the receiving end of a hat trick by Notre Dame sophomore Ali Durkin.
“They pretty much shut us down,” head coach John Siegfried said. “We had only one goal and it was in the first quarter. They had a really good goalie; we threw up around 15 or 20 shots and she blocked all but one of them. That happens. At this level, if you have a dynamite goalie, you can shut everybody down. We couldn’t create any type of offense.”
The loss put Oregon in the third-place game the next day against 10th-ranked Pennsylvania. Eager to shake off their play against Notre Dame, the Ducks proved their worth against the Quakers and finished the tournament with a 7-3 victory that earned them third place overall. Gordon managed to better her performance against Utah, finishing with an astonishing four goals and earning the Player of the Game award, her second of the tournament. Wilcox added two goals of her own, and von Stockhausen also had one.
“We were able to counter-attack more (in this game), and we got a couple of goals off of that,” said Gordon.
The win against the Quakers capped off another strong season for the Ducks, who finished second in last year’s national championship. The team’s achievements this year were just as – if not more – impressive than last year’s, however, as the Ducks played with just one senior (Katie Fletcher).
“Our performance was really good,” said Siegfried. “We lost five seniors (from last year) and we really came through as a team. It was really a team effort to get third place this year.”
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