Emily Marshall has been quite active in the water polo world already this year.
With Saskatchewan not fielding a team for the Junior Olympics this summer in California, the Estevan product was picked up by an 18U women's Capitals Water Polo team from Arlington, Va. to help them get seeded.
It was the first time Marshall had taken to the field with Americans.
“In the States, their playing format is a little bit different,” Marshall said. “They have different names for things. I kind of had to watch and deduce their language for how they communicate with each other and what they called things. Like, for us, we have positions with numbers. They had numbers for positions like hockey, like right wing, left wing, defence and driver. It took a little bit to learn that, but other than that it was like any other tournament.”
The north east zone qualifier over the May long weekend in Greenwich, Conn. The top two teams from that tournament will qualify for the championship division with the remaining teams to play in the classic division.
“I kind of got to learn how the other girls worked and they started accepting me and the team and we all got to work together,” she said.
The team had never competed together before and included seven athletes from Virginia, one from Pittsburgh and five Canadians, including Emily. They won their first game 10-7 over the CV Eagles, with Marshall playing nearly the entire game and picking up a pair of assists.
They finished 1-3 in the tournament including a 12-8 loss to the Penn Girls team, a 17-2 loss to top seeded hometown Greenwich team and a 10-5 loss to Excel. Marshall had four assists in the final three games.
“I didn't really have any big expectations because I didn't know any of the girls but from what our coach said and what the league actually expected from us, we exceeded expectations,” Marshall said. “We're a first year team and this is our first time playing together so they didn't expect us to win games.”
With the big win being a confidence booster, the team goes their separate ways until a tournament in July. She'll fly out to California to join the team in the classic division of the Junior Olympics.
“Our coach is starting to organize mini tournaments in Virginia since that is where the team is from,” Marshall said. “There's a few opportunities in June and a couple at the start of July.”
The hope is that with a bit more experience together, the better the team will play once the tournament starts.
As for Marshall, she'll age out of the 16U program in the fall into 19U but before that, the summer provincial tournament will be happening later this month. It's usually just a fun event before the season for the club – based at the Lawson Aquatic Centre in downtown Regina — starts.
“I'm hoping that we'll start off the season with a bang since we're one of the teams that starts the soonest,” Marshall said. “Two weeks after school starts, we're in the water.”
