Girls Water Polo: Pregame against El Diamante

Redwood Girls Water Polo players share their thoughts on the teams preparation, goals, and what it will take to secure a win for their second league game against El Diamante on September 30th, 2025.

By: Ariana Lopez Salguero

On September 30th, 2025 Redwood Girls Waterpolo played their second league game against El D, though not their first game against El D this season, the team have no doubt about their own abilties to win this game.

Lily Iverson, ’27, Captain for Varsity Redwood Girls Waterpolo says “I’m super excited for this game. I think we’re going to play really well, we’ve been working really hard in practice.”

Iverson is most excited to, “implement things [they’ve] been working really hard on in practice, dialing on some movement in the pool and the defense.”

To prepare for the game, Iverson says “In practice we move the ball around, and get it to one position and everyone in the pool shifts, practicing that with defense so we can learn how to work around it.”

“El D just like many of the other schools in this league are a young team. A lot of the strong players graduated so now it’s really time for those young players to step up,” said Iverson. “A lot of teams I know are working really hard.”

She says “I expect today’s game to be more strategic instead of physical. Making good passes and just being smart about where we place the ball and our timing.”

Some personal goals for Iverson would be, “staying confident in my head, and not to get down on myself If I make a mistake.”

Like many other sports teams, the team has a team tradition. In the last two minutes before their game starts Iverson says, “we do two sprints and we go into a prayer.”

Iverson’s favorte hype song right now would be “Sports Car by Tate McRae, my goalie and I listen to it.”

Iverson says that the best hype people on the team are “Michelle Palma and Hadlee Galley.They are the best for hyping up everyone on the team.”

Michelle Palma, ’27, another Captain for Varsity Redwood Girls Water polo Team says “I feel good, I feel that with our league it’s just a good time for us to prepare for playoffs.”

After the girls win against Porterville, Palma says “I feel confident that we can go undefeated in league.”

“I’m most excited to see the work in the game since we’ve been putting a lot of work in practice,” said Palma. “To see how we continue to grow and work better, to be a better team and come out strong in the first half.”

Lately we’ve been coming out kind of slow in the first half and like destroying the teams in the second half,” Palma said.

Taking it as something to improve on she says “We want to focus on working to really come up strong in the first half and put away teams early so that we can just have time throughout the game to relax so that it isn’t always head to head with the other team.”

She says “Our team has a really good bond and we are very well-rounded, I’ve heard that El D has had a good season so far.”

“Today’s game is going to be more strategic, I’m not really sure how physical El D plays but I know that we are really dialing down on our plays and our defense has been set, just really focusing finishing our shots,” said Palma.

“Something key to winning against El D is taking our time on offense and moving the ball around.” Palma says “We’ve been really static on offense lately, we have just been slow to find out what works for us.”

A personal goal for Palma is to “Feel more confidence in [herself] and [feel] like [she] can apply [herself] to offense more and hopefully get some goals.”

Out of all her goals the most important one or her would be, “making sure we are communicate as a team and take things slow,” said Palma.

She says “I just want to be a leader out there today and make sure that even in games like this, if it is not a super hard game, that we are still practicing the same things.”

A team tradition Palma says is that, ” before games, maybe a minute before the game starts, we huddle together in a circle and wrap our arms around each other and we say a team prayer and then set our goals for the game and hype each other up. Making sure that the girls nerves get out and ensuring that the girls are confident going into the game.

“Our song for Water polo has been Pump It Up by Endor, that’s just like our song, when we hear that for our game, we are locked,” said Palma.

Claire Hawkes, ’28, says “Our team is really prepared and ready for our game.”

Throughout their whole pre-season, the Water polo girls have learned a lot. Especially from their coaches, “Brett and Mike,” said Hawkes.

To prepare for this game the team focused on man up as well as getting down on defense, with confidence she says “I’m not nervous, I think we are ready for it”

Riley McNamara, ’29, on Redwood Girls Junior Varsity team says “I’m feeling pretty good, it’s still my first year of playing a water sport so its really fun.”

Both Varsity and JV Water Polo Girls have played El D this season in a tournament but that doesn’t stop McNamara as she says, “our strategy is to play them like we’ve never played them before and go all out.”

McNamara says that her personal goal this game is to, “score at least two goals, we’ve been training very hard during practice.”

“A goal for the team as a whole is to be really aggressive,” McNamara said. “When I’m sitting on the bench, I’m going to support my teammates.”

She says “Water polo is an awesome sport, I thought it was going to be so hard and I thought I was going to quit in the first week but I just fell in love with it.”

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