The water polo teams will compete against Marcus on Sept. 27 at the Westside Aquatic Center at 5:30 p.m.
It will be the teams’ second-to-last game of the district season and their third time playing Marcus this season. Marcus’s teams are first in the district with Hebron in second. Both teams lost to Marcus on Sept. 10, with the boys losing 14-20 and the girls 5-16.
“[Both teams] have been wanting to beat Marcus for a while,” head coach Donzie Lilly said. “There is a big rivalry; [both teams] know all the Marcus players, and have a lot of fun competing against them.”
A key matchup will be girls’ center defender Mia Slaughter with Marcus’ center Courtney Smith, as both players are ranked within the top 50 players nationally. Attacker Hannah Danielson said that the girls teams’ outside players have been practicing getting the ball near the net and making sure they limit the chances Marcus will have to shoot.
“We have strong outside shooters,” Danielson said. “We didn’t use them [against Walnut Grove], so we’ve been working on pushing forward more and improving our zone defense and speed.”
Boys’ center Dane Johnson is ranked first in the nation for number of points scored. Lilly said that Marcus will attempt to get him into foul trouble, meaning the team will have to step up on defense.
“With the boy’s team, we are [Marcus’s] only and biggest competition,” Lilly said. “We know we can beat them, but the boys know it won’t be easy. [Overall,] the boys look forward to playing a good, quality game of water polo.”
Marcus’ girls team roster has remained similar to last season’s and has a lot of experience, which Lilly said is going to make for a tough matchup. To counter Marcus’s strong roster, the girls have been working on defensive plays.
“It’s going to be very hard [for the girls team] to beat Marcus,” Lilly said. “[However, Marcus] is a great team to learn from, so when we go up against future opponents, we’re more likely to be successful.”
Marcus’ boys team lost four players from last season. Center defender Bogdan Slavu said that because of this and the boys team’s improvement this year, Marcus is beatable.
“It will be a close game, but I believe we can win,” Slavu said. “Waterpolo is a game about capitalizing on mistakes, so if we capitalize on Marcus’s mistakes, we will win. We’ve worked on our mistakes, [improved] our communication and I believe that we are in a good position.”
