Yesterday girls from year 9-10 embarked on a water polo carnival to compete against other schools in Perth. The event was held at HBF Stadium in the indoor diving pools and outdoor water polo oriented pools. I competed in this event last year as the team didn’t have enough people try out, and they asked me to join their team as I do squad swimming at the Wesley College pool (for team SSPW). As when I received an email to try out I remember the fun that I had last year and decided to go for it.

Coming to tryouts Mr Stevens (sports coordinator) had a look at our skills and ability to work as a team. Then we played a short game from there, at first this was tiring as I don’t play water polo, and I wasn’t used to the high energy. He then assessed who was best and made cuts from there. Thankfully I made the team and got to go the carnival.

On the day I arrived at school early to catch the bus and make it there by 9 o’clock. Once we arrived we found the pool we had to play in and started to come up with tactics on how we were going to score goals. Everyone contributed and I made sure we could include as many ideas as possible.

Then the game started, it was a struggle to fight agasint the girls from other schools, however our previous planning and communication helped. Everyone played to their strengths, whether it was to attack, defend or be goalie. I stayed in attack as I was great at scoring goals.

Over the course of the day, we won 5 out of the 6 games and were good sports by cheering for the other team and shaking their hands. I felt that I really improved, and I can’t wait to do it next year!