Water polo sinks

It was an unfortunate weekend for Queen’s water polo: the men’s team lost three straight and women had their perfect record spoiled with their first loss.

The women looked to build on their perfect 3-0 record with games against York and McMaster at home.
“We were really excited to play against York,” Melissa Dermody said. The Lions were ranked second in the OUA last year. Queen’s came on strong from the beginning and defeated York 17-9.

Gael Shannel Rajan had four goals in the victory and Sasha Robinson added another three.

“We didn’t really play amazing in the first quarter,” Dermody said. “But we picked it up from there.”
Queen’s played their second game of the weekend against the McMaster Marauders. Going into the game, both the Marauders and Gaels held perfect 3-0 records. McMaster is the three-time defending
OUA champions. “We wanted to be the first team to beat [McMaster],” Dermody said. “It was a good
game, a pretty close one.” Both teams played a strong game, but, in the end, McMaster’s Lillian Desouza-Burr scored four goals to lead McMaster to a 7-4 victory.

“I think there was some times that we panicked and didn’t take the best shots that we could have,” Dermody said. “We could have converted a little better on our man advantages.”

With the win, McMaster moves into first place while Queen’s drops to second. The Gaels will play a rematch with McMaster next Saturday in the first of three weekend games. They play York later that day and face Toronto on Sunday. All three games are in Hamilton. The men opened the weekend on
Saturday with a 19-13 loss to the McMaster Marauders. The Gaels dropped their next game 15-11 to the York Lions. Gael Rob Prentice led his team with six goals against McMaster and three against York.
Queen’s played a second game against York on Sunday, hoping to end their fourgame losing streak. York was able to hold Queen’s offence in check en route to a 15-8 victory.

“We were hoping that the York games would be close games,” rookie Eric Jones said. “The York team was stronger than we thought they were going to be.” The Gaels are currently 1-5 and fifth out of six teams in their division. Their next two games are next weekend against McMaster and Toronto.