Tom Guo ’09 volleys the ball. Ian Morris

While all interscholastic Choate teams have begun or soon will begin interscholastic play, pre-season tournaments for varsity teams are a regular occurrence in the first couple weeks of the spring term. Three teams—Girls Water Polo, Boys Tennis, and Archery—have entered into these tournaments so far.

Girls Water Polo

The water polo team officially started off their season with a tournament on Saturday, March 29th. The boars drove down I-95 to Greenwich, Connecticut to play in the new Greenwich YMCA pool. Choate played three matches, including two against all-star caliber teams. The boars lost the first game 18-1 against the New York Athletic club, a club which coach Bill Berghoff called a “women’s national team.” The second game was against a Pennsylvania all-star team. The boars were defeated again, losing 10-1. Playing in the final game against the Navy Aquatic’s team, Choate won its first game handily 17-5 leaving the team with a 1-2 record for the tournament. The tournament had a positive effect on the team despite their losing record, giving them practice before games with more typical rivals. Berghoff said, “For example, we played Loomis on yesterday, Wednesday, April 2nd, and we had already played five games before playing them, and they hadn’t played any, so we were certainly better prepared team-wise to play well, and I think that made the difference in us beating them.” (Choate defeated Loomis 10-8.) Berghoff described the tournament as a real triumph for some players: “Our goalie, Ariel Baugh ’08, was our best player of the day. She just had so many hard chances for stops, and she made a lot of those stops. Then some of the younger girls like Cori West ’10 and Yuliya Oumarbaeva ’10 played at a higher level than I expected them to.”

Boys Tennis

This past weekend, Saturday, April 5 and Sunday April 6th, the boys’ tennis team played in their first tournament of the season. The tournament was held in West Hartford, Connecticut, at the Kingswood-Oxford school. This tournament featured schools such as Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Westminster, Hall High School, Kingswood-Oxford, and Choate. Captain Max Mullen ’08 notes, “We see it as a scrimmage. It’s a good way to see how the other teams are doing, and usually see at least the top four (players) of the other teams. We get a sense of where we stand for the season.” Mullen was confident going into the tournament: “Traditionally, we have done pretty well. The past two years we have finished in the top three teams. It is a good barometer to see where everyone is, and it is good to get some matches in.” As for the quality of the Choate lineup, Max said, “I think we are tough up and down the lineup, we really have a good group of fighters out there. This year we will be bringing seven players, so we will have a lot of fresh legs.” The extra players helped as Choate finished in 4th place out of eight teams. Highlights from the tournament included the number two doubles team of Brian McDermitt ’08 and captain Max Mullen ’08 came in second in their division, as well as the first doubles team of Tom Guo ’09 and Alessio Gallarotti ’08 and third singles player Chip Lebovitz ’10 who came in fourth and third in their respective divisions.

Archery

The Choate Archery team participated in their first tournament last weekend, on Saturday, April 5th. They drove up to Tangy’s Archery Club in West Warwick, Rhode Island, to compete against the Tangy’s Club Team and other teams from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and some Junior Olympic Archery Development teams or JOADS. On how the tournament will affect the team’s season, co-captain Miles Sackler ’08 said, “I’m not too sure. Usually at Tangy’s we do pretty well, so tomorrow should be pretty good. Then next a week from tomorrow we will shoot at a place called Hall’s, which is the Connecticut state tournament, so we’ll see how we will do there. It’s a little harder with more people there.” As for Choate shooters to watch, Miles said that Francisca DaSilveira ’10, and a lot of the veteran players who have more experience, will be the key to Choate’s success. Miles explained that with a young team, “This year is going to be a lot of teaching new kids how to shoot, so next year they can continue to shoot. This year is more going to be about teaching new kids how to shoot than scoring at tournaments in the past, but I still think we will do very well.”