This Saturday at noon, the No. 12 IU water polo team will face its archrival No. 19 Michigan at home in the Hoosiers' final regular season match of the season.
It will be senior night for IU, and the team will honor its lone senior, attacker Jakie Koehli. Throughout her career, Koehli has scored 233 goals, which is second-best all-time in IU's record books. Only Kristin Stanford has scored more times with 246 goals. Koehli also has 267 steals and 126 assists in her career, good for fourth and second all-time, respectively.
Although Michigan is 41-14-2 all-time against IU, the Hoosiers have won three of the past four matches. If the two rivals don't meet in the postseason, it will be the first time ever that they will only play each other once in a season.
Here are IU Coach Barry King's, Koehli's and freshman center Candyce Schroeder's thoughts on the upcoming showdown.
On excitement level to finally play Michigan:
King: "This is the game every year that people look at, simply because it's been a good rivalry, and the quality of the games have been really high over a long period of time. The natural excitement that comes with playing your main rival and getting to do it at home is certainly there."
Koehli: "I'm so excited. Usually we play them three or four times a year, so by the third or fourth time we're like, 'OK, one more time,' but this year, it's our first game, and it's a home tournament, so it's really exciting. I'm really pumped."
Schroeder: "We're really excited to play them, and it was good not to play them earlier because now we have a bunch of film. We've been preparing all season to play them, and I think this is our favorite game to play."
On how to combat the balance of Michigan (Five different Michigan players have combined for nine total weekly awards this year; IU has three of each):
King: "We have pretty good players too, and we've demonstrated a certain amount of balance also. This game always comes down to who's most prepared defensively. We're gonna have our best defenders on their best offensive players, and we'll go from there."
Koehli: "I think we have a really deep team as well, and we match up really well with them. I don't think that winning those weekly awards and having so many different people winning them is gonna be that big of a deal. In the long run, I think we match up really well with them."
Schroeder: "I think we're more focused on ourselves and what we can do."
On how IU has turned the tables on Michigan:
King: "I think some of the breaks have gone our way. Inside of that rivalry, I think there's only five or six games that have been decided by more than two goals either direction (The actual number is 15 times). We've always just kind of been there and had a bounce go against and that kind of thing. More recently, I think, we've had more bounces go our way than against."
Koehli: "They lost a bunch of key players the past couple years, and we've gotten some really great recruits. We've gotten some really great hole-sets and outside players, and it's really helped. And I think just overall, we really want to beat them all the time."
One word to describe the rivalry and why:
King: "Fun. This game is exactly why all these people put all that kind of work into it. You want to do your work and get to display your skill inside of meaningful contests, and this is as meaningful as it gets."
Koehli: "Intense and very loud. Every time we play them, it's usually at our pool or their pool, so our fans will just go crazy. At their pool, they have a cowbell that's really annoying, and they have their a cappella group that comes out and sings. So, their's is a really annoying loud, and ours is get-pumped-up loud, because everyone's just cheering us on."
On what to expect from the rivalry for the first time:
Schroeder: "They're pretty athletic, and they play pretty well as a team. They're really physical, so we have to match how physical they are. I think we'll have a really good game."
On how sweet it would be to end the regular season/IU home career with a win against Michigan:
King: "It's important. I think we're the better squad, and we've been doing really good things all season long. It's time to consolidate and put our best foot forward."
Koehli: "It would be amazing, and I think we can do it, so I'm really looking forward to this weekend."
Schroeder: "I think it would be a really good confidence-booster, because we'll probably see them the next two weekends after. I think it would be fun to win at home, and it's Jakie's last game at home, so to win for her, since it's senior night, would be good."
On emotions heading into final IU home game:
Koehli: "It's not my last game with the team, so it's not gonna be too different. I probably won't start feeling really sad until my last tournament, so I'm just gonna go in like any other game - play my heart out, play to win."
On how much they want to get a win for Koehli:
King: "No more than we would want to win anyway, but Jakie's meant a lot to the program. I think at the end of the day, she's going to prove to be the best all-around player that we've ever had here. We want that reflected positively in her last contest here."
Schroeder: "Jakie's a really good team-leader. Everyone looks up to her, she's always encouraging us, she has a great work ethic. I think it's more a win for her if we can all come together as a team for her last game."
