Blocking the Shots while taking a Shot: Meet the 22-23 Varsity Girls Water Polo Goalies

By: Ayla Barton

Amelia Crockett, ’25 and Bella Garrett, ’26 reflect on their time as goalies for the Varsity Girls Water Polo team as they take into account their goals for the remainder of the season.

This year’s Varsity Girls Water Polo goalies are Amelia Crockett, ’25 and Bella Garrett, ’26. While Crockett was moved up at the beginning of the season, Garrett was welcomed at the start of the league season.

As a sophomore, this is Crockett’s second year playing polo for Redwood. During her freshmen year, she played on JV. She was pulled up during pre-season to play on varsity.

From the ages of six to ten, swim was another aquatic sport she had participated in.

Crockett is the last sibling out of her four to be playing water polo for the school. Although she has never played alongside them in a school match, she has at home. “We have played along with each other, super fun and lots of tackling,” Crockett says.

Crockett was selected for varsity cheer last year, but made the decision to stick with polo despite wanting to do both. “I thought about it and cheer didn’t feel like the right thing so I decided to choose water polo,” she says.

When asked who her biggest inspiration was to take the spot of goalie, Crockett says her older sister, Kate, was “someone who pushed [her], since she was always there guiding [Crockett].”

Kate Crockett was the goalie last season and had been involved with the Redwood Water Polo program for all four years.

Crockett reflects on herself from the start of the season to now, as she says she acknowledges that she has gained more social and leadership skills.

Her job as a goalie is crucial fir the defensive aspect of the team. The role of goalie is to assist in communication when on defense and to find open offensive players. Crockett is also in charge of kick-starting the offense by getting the ball from one end of the pool to the other.

Regarding her own personal goals for the season the main thing she wants to improve on is getting better at blocking skip shots. Crockett would also like to be able to help out her teammates more by being able to acknowledge what they need help with if help is needed.

Crockett’s teammates are a big part of her success as a goalie. Crockett says, “They are so nice even when I feel like I am the worst goalie in the whole entire world; they will right then and there be like you are doing so great it makes me a lot happier.”

“It is really fun and it is the only sport that I have actually loved and had an interest in doing. It’s something that even watching it gets me excited throughout the season.”

Amelia Crockett, ’25 discussing water polo

Crockett and her whole team have a goal of being the valley champions. Crockett has taken her position to heart and loves playing “I’m ready and I know my team is ready, we are going to beat the heck out of everyone.”

According to Coach Mieke Howell, she says “Amelia has a ton of potential. She has an amazing, persistent positively that allows her to bounce back from missed blocks.”

For this season, Howell’s goals for Amelia are to strengthen her skills and confidence as goalie.

Howell says, “With the graduation of Amelia’s sister last year, we had a vacancy in the goalie position that needed to be filled. Amelia had the most experience out of all of our other candidates, and was willing to fully commit to the water polo season.”

With Crockett being one of the youngest players on the team, Howell says “Mia has filled the vitally important role of goalie with maturity and grace.”

She is glad to welcome Garrett to the team and thinks she is a good addition. “She is very competitive so she takes every missed goal personally which is what you want from a goalie,” says Howell.

Goals that Howell has for Garrett this season is “No goals scored on her.”

Due to Garrett’s background in swimming, she was moved up to varsity because she was at a point on the JV team where she was not going to be given the chance to improve anymore.

“We had plenty of room on our varsity practices for two goalies so we could run scrimmages, shes been playing great,” says Howell.

Howell says that has never seen a goalie faster than Garrett. “She is the fastest swimmer on our team, but she plays goalie which doesn’t require that much swimming, so when she gets out of the cage and takes a couple stokes, she is the fastest goalie in the world,” she says.

Garrett is a freshman taking on the role of playing in the goalie position alongside Crockett. Garrett first started out on JV as well and was pulled up to play for the season.

Garrett has done competitive swimming since she was five years old and has never stopped. When Garret was younger she decided to try out water polo and says she “despised it and thought [she] would never play.”

She has participated in several swim clubs over the years such as her first one being the Bakersfield Aquatics Club for the first four years; she also spent time at Road Runner. When she moved to Visalia, she began swimming for TNT Tulare.

Coming from a background of swimming, Garret says she feels that it has prepared her for the challenges of water polo.

Garrett has been conditioning for swimming since she was young, and that overall has made her be able to be comfortable in the water, which allows her to really focus on learning the sport that is polo.

Since Garrett had been swimming for so long, water polo seemed like an appropriate choice to try out since it was in her range of things she enjoys doing.

During the summer practices, everyone on the team did a drill where they were given the chance to play goalie. Afterward the coaches asked Garrett if she would like to continue playing goalie. Garrett says, “I really enjoy the training for being a goalie, because it requires a lot of kicking and leg strength so I liked the idea of continuing.”

Some goals that Garrett has for herself this season is to be more confident with steals. She says, “Oftentimes, I hesitate too much, and by the time I’ve heisted it’s too late to get the ball.”

Considering it is her first year of playing, she says “it worries [her] a bit, because [she is] not experienced whatsoever with water polo, nonetheless being a goalie, but [she’s] grateful to have the chance to learn from and play with such a talented team.”

Garrett regards her role alongside Crockett in a positive light:

“Amelia is very kind and is always encouraging. [She] has never made the shared position feel like a competition between the two of us.”

Bella Garrett, ’26

To see these two goalies in action, come to the Varsity Girls Water Polo game at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday October 13th as they take on El Diamante at the Redwood pool.

Tags: ayla barton, deep dive, girls water polo, humans of redwood, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, rhs, varsity water polo, visalia ca, water polo, water polo goalies