Hoosiers look to right ship

For the first time all season, every one of the Hoosiers' opponents this weekend will be unranked. None of the teams have ever beaten IU, but the Hoosiers are not taking things lightly.\nComing off of a loss to No. 6 California, the No. 9 Hoosiers hope to rebound when they head east to start the College Water Polo Association Western Division play.\n"We were disappointed with the losses (last weekend)," said IU coach Barry King. "We fought hard in tough games, but came up just short. This weekend is a little bit of a step down, but it's the second part of our season and we will not take it lightly."\nThe competition this weekend will be made up of six schools in the CWPA Western Division with IU. \n"(Most of the teams we play this weekend) try to get a bunch of athletes who do swimming to come out for water polo," King said. "We don't really know much about them other than that they will be good swimming teams. In the past they haven't really given us much trouble."\nIU is 5-0 against Washington and Jefferson University, outscoring the Presidents 81-7 in those matches. The Hoosiers have beaten Slippery Rock all six times the two teams have played, with IU averaging nearly 16 goals the last five times. The team is 5-0 against Penn State-Behrend, scoring 69 more goals during those five games. IU is 3-0 against Mercyhurst, with last game being a 15-3 Hoosier victory last season. The Hoosiers are 6-0 against Gannon, but the Knights will be the toughest contest of the weekend, King said.\n"Gannon will be the best test out there," he said. "Their coach does a good job recruiting. Playing in their own pool I'm sure they will be excited and have a big crowd on hand. It should be pretty interesting; they are typically the third best team in the division, behind Indiana and Michigan."\nThe Hoosiers have struggled putting games away early. They will try to change that this weekend, said senior attacker Kandace Waldthaler.\n"I think we will definitely be able to start out strong and put games away early," she said. "If we put the game away early we don't have to worry about the outcome. If we play our game I don't expect these games to be as close as our previous games."\nThe Hoosiers hope to continue their strong play this weekend. It will be important not to play down to the competition, said senior attacker Krista Peterson.\n"Given that we don't have too many tough games this weekend we need to play our game instead of playing down to our competition," Peterson said. "We need to keep moving in a positive direction and keep playing our game. That will be key for us."\nHaving learned some lessons from their previous games, the Hoosiers hope to be better prepared for this weekend. \n"We know what we need to work on," said senior goalie Jessica Goldner. "We need to take what we've learned in the past weekends and use it against these teams. Everyone has shown a lot of heart. We keep playing tough no matter what the score is, in both wins and losses we keep pushing."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Steve \nBrennan at sgbrenna@indiana.edu.