This weekend, the No. 11 IU water polo team will play at home for the first time this season. The Hoosiers will host the Fluid Four, in which they will play Dollard Des Ormeaux (a club team from Montreal) in an exhibition at 10 a.m. Saturday. Then in games that count in the win-loss column, IU will face No. 10 Long Beach State at 7:20 p.m. Saturday and Washington & Jefferson at 10:20 a.m. Sunday.
Here are the thoughts of IU Coach Barry King, junior defender Amanda Redfern and freshman center Candyce Schroeder on the upcoming weekend.
On finally playing at home:
Redfern: "Playing at home is great because all our friends are able to come out. It's also awesome to have a good crowd going. Whenever we travel a lot, family is there but not really friends, so it's great our friends are able to see us play."
Schroeder: "I haven't had a home game yet, so I'm excited for that experience. All the older girls say it's a lot of fun, and the stands are going to be pretty packed."
On whether playing at home will be an advantage:
King: "Typically, it's a disadvantage. We're really good at traveling because we do it so much. The infrequency of being home tends to add a few more distractions than normal. So actually we try to act like we're on the road even though we're home, try to get into that kind of schedule. I mean yes, it's always fun to play in front of friends and family, and it sounds like it will be a good crowd."
Redfern: "I don't think I agree with (King's assessment), because having your fans that will pump you up just makes you excited, and you want to play better to show them how good you are, and you want to show off."
Schroeder: "Your schedule is definitely different. You're not in a hotel, so you can go back to your dorm and stuff. I think it's more exciting to be able to show your friends and family how hard you've been working and see your hard work pay off."
On whether playing an exhibition match against a club team will be any different than a normal game:
King: "We would certainly hope not. It's an opportunity. Everyone will play in it. They've got some talented people on it. It will be a good test for everybody, but they're all trying to go into that working on some individual things and make some improvements in their individual games, and then hopefully that will impact their team performance and the rest of the weekend."
Redfern: "I don't think it's different than any normal game. We treat all of our games the same, and we always go in and focus on what we need to work on, so it's the same as any other game."
Schroeder: "It's just another game for us to get better and reach our goal of winning Easterns."
On facing No. 10 Long Beach State:
King: "Big, physical group. They have some good skill kids. I'm really interested to see how their Greek national player (Christina Kotsia) has fit in with them. Their M.O. is to be big and physical, and so far that's kind of caused us some problems this season, so it will be a super, super test for us. We had a blood bath with them last year over spring break (IU won 7-6), and these are essentially the same squads. It should be a great game."
Redfern: "Long Beach State is a good team, and they're tough, and they work hard, so we're going to have to work hard and work our best and play our best like we did last weekend."
Schroeder: "I think if we play as a team we'll be fine."
On Washington & Jefferson (this weekend's games will be the team's first of the season):
King: "It's always good to have a certain amount of rhythm. We've got 13 games under our belt where we're finding our legs and learning about each other. It will be difficult for them trying to sort that out amongst the competition that they're going to face this weekend."
Redfern: "Their first weekend they're probably really excited and ready to go, so I think that they'll be pumped up. They haven't played before, so they want to show what they've got."
Schroeder: "I definitely think we've got an advantage because we've been playing with each other and we're used to playing with each other."
On having the archrival No. 19 Michigan Wolverines in the invitational but not playing them (second time that's happened this season):
King: "Traditionally, there were the years where we'd play each other four or five times, and (Michigan Coach) Matt (Anderson) and I finally said, "This is ridiculous." And so, we go to their invite and don't play them, they come to our invite, and we don't play. ... It's beneficial for both groups simply because other teams want to come because they know they're going to get good, solid matches against Indiana and against Michigan. But we're set to play down the road, so there's no reason to do it again."
Redfern: "I'm ready to play them, but I also feel like watching them some more and learning what we would need to do to guard them would be good. And we also probably need to work on some things to perfect our game as well."
Schroeder: "I think it's an advantage to see them play one more time and watch their plays, and we can watch more videos. But I think we're ready to play them, and we're ready to beat them"
