By Maxine Smith
In a close game, the water polo team defeated the Wildcats at state. Achieving this feat was not easy and required a great deal of determination.
After winning a few championships over the years, this one was the most memorable, especially for the seniors, because it was such a close game. “We’d lost to them twice before, so we were all pretty nervous, but we pulled it off,” said Senior Vane Steadman.
Throughout the game defensively, “every single person was on their man, they were very tightly guarding them. A lot of blocks were saved by Ford (Tedder) on offense,” said Vane. Vane also highlighted that he and Senior William Holmes did a good job throughout the game. Vane’s great performance was recognized when he received Athlete of the Week after this game.
It was a real nail-biter for much of the game. “It wasn’t until the fourth quarter when we were up by three that I finally thought, Okay, we might actually win this,” Coach King said.
Along with a close score, the game was more intense because it felt like the refs were being unfair. “It seemed like very uneven calling on the ref’s part, causing one of our players to have a permanent exclusion from the game, [and] he’s a very big player on the team,” said Ms. King.
Freshman Khairi Whittle also knocked the refs for not doing things in an orderly fashion. “They didn’t do the roster check, so we knew it was going to be a rough game,” said Khairi.
The Lovett team also had the challenge of going up against players from all of the Cobb County schools, since water polo isn’t a GHSA sport. “It’s like playing a super-team with the best of the best from a collection of schools,” Ms. King said. Ms. King hopes to avoid this in the future by “playing in an even higher division,” she said.
Fortunately, the team had expected to be playing the Wildcats in the finals, so in the weeks leading up, they got to prepare specifically for this team.
Throughout the season, several technical challenges arose. “At the beginning of the season, I was playing for two different teams in the same league, so I was playing on our middle school team and our high school team. I had to make sure that I was focused and I was ready to grow and keep playing the sport,” said Khairi.
Ms. King also faced a similar challenge because she was between two teams, as she coaches the middle and high school teams. On top of that, Ms. King “recently got a new assistant coach who doesn’t know the game.” So, she was teaching her the game so she could take over some of the middle school duties while also coaching the high school team, as well as trying to coach the middle school team. “It was hard to balance,” said Ms. King.
Although Ms. King was coaching two teams, the team still felt that Ms. King was very supportive. “She made sure that during practice we’re not messing around and that we’re trying our best and pushing ourselves to limits,” said Khairi.
During the state championship, Ms. King shared many words of encouragement. “She just told us how it needed to be,” said Vane Stedman. “If we sucked, we sucked pretty good. She was our number one supporter.”
Moving forward, Ms. King hopes to grow the team. “I’d love to see my middle school program continue to get bigger and feed the high school program,” she said. The majority of the team has been playing since middle school, and most of them have five years of experience, which makes it hard to see the seniors leave.
The good news? “Middle schoolers are getting ready to move up,” she said, “so that’ll be really helpful.” Additionally, Vane predicted that Khairi will continue to play a pivotal role in the team’s success. “As a goalie, he’s got very long arms, tall guy, good legs. He can get out of the water,” said Vane.
And hopefully, the team will continue to get more and more attention. As Vane put it, “Once you get over the Speedos and the stupid things that we wear on our heads, water polo is a really hard and fun game that people should do.”
