Leonardi's Five Takeaways from the Collegiate Cup
11/6/2017 2:54:00 PM | Water Polo
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Head coach Dr. Marcelo Leonardi came away very impressed overall with this year's University of Michigan water polo team after the Wolverines tested their mettle in Fresno, California, over the weekend (Nov. 4-5) at the USA Water Polo Collegiate Cup.
Here are Leonardi's five takeaways from the weekend:
1. Where the team is after two months of training
Our team is young, and it takes time to grow in the system and learn how to play together. Although the team is young, we do have five returning starters. That proved to be a good place to start as building blocks for Team 18. Two freshmen, Maddy Johnston and Kathy Rogers, cracked the starting lineup this past weekend and played well. Overall the team had some quality wins and was able to play with some of the best teams in the country. The weekend gave the team great momentum as we resume training for the season.
2. Dress rehearsal for the season
Traveling west for the Collegiate Cup was a great opportunity to experience what traveling as a team will be like during the season. The freshmen got to experience what it is like to take the bus to the airport, fly as a team, how team meetings before games are, pregame warmup routines, and how I coach during the games. I was really happy that everybody got to play, and they will be ready when we start the season Jan. 20-21 in Santa Barbara, California. The team also played three games on Saturday and five on the weekend, something we will have to do the first two weekends of the season and again during conference play at Harvard in April, so experiencing what to do in between games was very important as well.
3. The team's fitness level
I was very impressed with the overall fitness of the team. The team played five games in two days and I never saw them lose focus or slow down. You could look at the boxscore of the fifth game and see that we were tied with USA1, 5-5, heading into the fourth quarter and got outscored 3-0, but it wasn't fatigue. Our defensive leader, sophomore Maddy Steere, drew her third exclusion and that had a big impact on the team. The fitness level was the best I have seen it in the fall during my time at Michigan.
4. Better depth than years past
Over the course of five games, I was able to get everyone on the travel party into games. It was important that I saw a lot of players come off the bench and provide good minutes. I wanted to access our depth heading into the weekend and feel good about it. I also thought it was important that we were able to get some young players experience in big games. We were not the same team on Sunday as the team that lost by one goal to Hawai'i in our first game. Of the 14 field players on the trip, 12 scored goals and 10 scored multiple times. Our two goalkeepers also received significant minutes and did well.
5. Maddy Johnston as a great two-way player
MJ, a freshman from Hillsborough, California, came in with a reputation as a lock-down defender. As a member of the Youth National Team, that was a large part of her role for the team as she had many talented scorers around her. I knew she was a great two-way player and pulled her aside and told her to be more aggressive and attack the cage when there is an opening. She had two goals in the opening game against Hawai'i and ending up leading the team with 12 goals on the weekend, scoring four in both the USA2 and Fresno State games. Moving forward she will be looked at as a two-way threat.
