Water polo team begins 2006 campaign Saturday at Michigan

After finishing last season with a 24-10 (7-0) record, the IU women's water polo team opens its season ranked No. 11. The Hoosiers started last season with the same ranking and topped last season at No. 6, but dropped to No. 10 after losing to Michigan 7-6.\nThough the team lost its two leading scorers from a year ago, attackers Krista Peterson and Kandace Waldthaler, it returns senior Janis Pardy and junior Kristin Zernicke who led the team in assists last year, with 39 and 34 respectively.\n"This is going to be an opportunity for some of our other players to step up who weren't able to play as much last year," coach Barry King said. "However, losing them changes the nature of our team quite a bit because those two scorers were our centers and we won't be as much attacker-driven."\nBecause of the losses of Peterson and Waldthaler, the Hoosiers will need to rely more on their perimeter game rather than scoring over the middle.\n"We lost some key players last year, but I think that people are stepping up a lot more, plus we have a lot of good freshmen," sophomore goalie Jackie Pyrz said.\nThis weekend the Hoosiers open their season at the Michigan Kickoff Tournament in Ann Arbor, Mich. During the course of two days, the team will play four games, three of which are against ranked teams. On Saturday, IU will face off against No. 17 University of California-San Diego and No. 8 Michigan. The Hoosiers finish the tournament Sunday against No. 7 Long Beach State and unranked Colorado State.\n"This is the first time in awhile that I feel as if I don't have a handle on how good we are," King said. "We could be anywhere from 4-0 to 0-4 by Sunday. We have a lot of question marks on what the weekend is about, but we'll find out the answers to those questions by the end of the weekend."\nIn order for the Hoosiers to come out of this weekend strong, they will have to look for players to step up and lead the team to victory, King said.\n"We're going to have to play well as a team and keep our heads in the game," Pyrz said.\nKing said he feels confident that the other teams are in a position similar to the Hoosiers'.\n"Michigan and Long Beach all graduated a large group of athletes along with us, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out," King said.\nThough the Hoosiers lost their leading scorers from last year, team members said they believe they are now a deeper squad, especially in the attacker position, which King hopes will carry them through the weekend. \n"There are some people who have now gotten themselves into the mix and our rotation," King said.\nWhile the Hoosiers' offense is suspect at the moment, their defense generally remains the same and the team feels that the defense is "as good of a defensive squad" as they've had in the past. On offense, the Hoosiers are hoping that their counter-attack has improved, which will allow them to score some easier goals in the half court.\nThough there is no clear vision on how the team will do this year, it has set high goals, including winning the conference championship and making the NCAA tournament. Despite that, King and the Hoosiers are just focusing on this weekend.\n"I think that some of our short-term goals, especially this weekend, are about finding our unity, what we do well and realize what we're going to need to work on over the next six weeks," King said. "This first weekend is going to be a lot about how well we can respond to some of the things our opponents are going to do"