Rumina Edgerton of Weyburn, a goalie for Team Canada’s U17 women’s waterpolo team, returned home with a silver medal along with her team after competing at the Pan American Youth Waterpolo Championships in Trinidad.
The Youth Pan Am Games were held from Aug. 16-24, and Team Canada played a total of seven games, five in the round-robin along with the semi-final and gold medal games.
The only losses the Canadians had were at the hands of a strong U.S. team, who defeated them 14-5 in the gold medal game and a 13-2 loss in the round robin.
“It was my first competition with Team Canada, and it was just a really good experience. A few of the teams were weaker, so the scores were lopsided, but the U.S. is an especially strong team,” said Edgerton in an interview.
In the round-robin, Canada won handily over Argentina by a score of 17-3, then 25-5 over Peru, and 28-3 over the host Trinidad-Tobago team, and then they beat Brazil 10-8. In the semi-final, they defeated Argentina 11-9 to advance to the gold medal game.
In spite of the 14-5 loss to the U.S., Edgerton counts it as a valuable experience to be challenged by a strong team, as they will likely face them again at the Worlds, which Team Canada has qualified for.
“That gave us a taste of a strong competitor. It was cool, because our team had only been together for two months, while the U.S. team had been together for more than a year,” she said. “We’ll take the next year to build our strength as a team.”
Team Canada has two goaltenders, and they switched off during the round-robin set of games, but the team had Edgerton start in both the semi-final and gold medal games.
She has played goalie for most of the six years she’s been playing the sport, after initially spending half a year as an out player when she first started with the Weyburn Hurricanes.
Edgerton loves playing in this position because it gives her an element of control over the play during games.
“I really like it because I can see everything about the play, so I can direct what they do, almost like a director of offence. I know how it runs and who needs to be where, so I’m in a lot of control. I also love it when people are shooting at me, because you need to read how the player is going to shoot,” said Edgerton, adding of her own team, she knows the playing style and abilities of every player, which helps her in directing where they should go.
Edgerton spent Grade 11 last year boarding in Regina to play and practice with Team Saskatchewan, and she will be doing that again for her Grade 12 year.
After graduating, she wants to keep playing waterpolo at the university level, and hopes to make the national team at the adult level, with dreams of some day playing at the Olympics. She noted that the women’s waterpolo team has qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, the first time in many years that Canada has had a team able to advance to this level, so she’s hopeful she might have a shot at making that level some day.
Edgerton said one of the most exciting moments for her was after the gold medal game and she stood with her team, representing Canada, hearing O Canada be played after they were presented with their silver medals.
