When it comes to closeness among teammates, Auburn water polo makes quite the splash.
The seven men on the team compete across the Southeast each fall, helping each other outside of practice, as well as during.
"I really enjoy how close our team is," said captain Patrick Gilday, senior in software engineering. "Everyone gets along extremely well, and the younger players know they can talk to the older guys about questions they may have, even if it is not water-polo related--questions about adjusting to life in Auburn or questions about school. Also, this comes into play when we are at tournaments because we all go out to eat together and hang out in between games."
The team was founded in 1995 and joined the Collegiate Water Polo Association later that year.
It functions as a coed club containing both a men's and women's team.
"My favorite part about being on the team is getting to play goalie," said Andrew Eick, junior in mechanical engineering. "I joined when I was a freshman because a friend of mine introduced me to the sport and showed me how fun it is."
The team practices the heavily aerobic sport in the James E. Martin Aquatics Center.
"As a team, we practice every Monday through Thursday," said Chris Rutledge, sophomore in business. "We start off with a short, but intense dry-land workout consisting of both abdominal and leg workouts. We then transfer to the pool for drills, sprints and scrimmages."
The team takes part in three tournaments in the fall--two round-robin style tournaments, in which each team plays each other team, and a league championship tournament.
"I really enjoy playing water polo; therefore, tournaments have always been my favorite part because we get to play four games in one weekend," Gilday said. "It would be hard to spend basically a whole weekend with the team if we did not get along as well as we did."
Gilder said the team goes to about three or four tournaments in the spring.
The structure of competition changes with the semesters.
"They are invitational and are not part of our league," Gilday said. "These tournaments have teams from different areas in the country, unlike our league tournaments that just consist of Southeastern teams."
The team's last competition of the fall is the Southeast Regional Championships at Georgia Tech Oct. 30-31.
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