CSUEB’s water polo team earned several distintive honors during its inaugural year in Division II.
Among the elite awarded are CSU East Bay’s Senior Jenna Casady and Freshman Claire Pierce.
The mastermind behind the brilliant season, Head Coach Lisa Cooper, was also awarded the Division-II Coach of The Year.
Regarded as one of the most successful seasons in program history, Coach Cooper began the season establishing a set of principles she believed would lead her team to triumph on and off the swimming pool.
“My team this past season was amazing in their attitude, dedication, self discipline and willingness to learn. Myself and my coaching staff really tried to instill our vision for the Cal State East Bay water polo program in every single one of our athletes,” Cooper said.
“We wanted to make this a beginning of our new vision and philosophy as it was our first year in division-II. The athletes in our program really bought into the philosophy and understood they were pioneers of the new era of CSUEB water polo.”
The team ended the season with a record of 24-12 while in the process defeating nationally ranked teams in the top 20’a such as #18 Santa Clara and #17 CSU Bakersfield. Two of the three leading scorers on the team, Jenna Casady and Claire Pierce, were selected as division-II 1st team All-Americans largely due to Pierce’s team high 90 goals and Casady’s 51 goals, 77 steals and 95 assists.
Pierce led the team and also the entire nation in all collegiate divisions in scoring. She was also honored as the CSUEB Female Athlete of the Year, The Western Water Polo Association (WWPA) Newcomer of the Year, All-WWPA Second Team honors and The All-Freshman Team honor. Pierce also demonstrated impeccable grades, earning a 4.0 GPA in her first year as a freshman.
“Our coaches throughout the season emphasized the importance of maintaining good grades and focusing on our studies,” Pierce saidl. “I felt like I had a lot of support not only in my water polo but also with my classes, this made it much easier to organize my schedule in order to fit everything in.
“For me in the end balance is the key, I allowed time aside of water polo and studies to enjoy myself and have fun.”
Casady performed at the highest level during her senior season, engraving her name in the record books in just two seasons. One-hundred sixty-five steals is a program record. Her 177 assists place her third on the all time leader’s list at CSUEB. Pierce joins Casady in academic achievement, earning the honor in two consecutive years.
High expectations were set after the 2010 season. This upcoming season is expected to be even more successful with Pierce now more experienced and with several returning seniors, as well as some of the top transfers, and freshmen in the country.
“We believe we can do even better this coming year,” said Cooper. “2010 was a great start to division-II. Expectations are high and we would like to be competing for the conference championship in 2011. We broke into the Division I national top 20 poll for the first time this past year and held onto our ranking for five weeks, we would like to stay in the top 20 all season next year.
“We have a lot of talented returners, including six seniors who will be leaders this coming season. We also have recruited some of the top freshman and junior college transfers in the country to add to our depth.”
In any case, CSUEB’s Women’s Water Polo team looks to be headed in the right direction, and the possibilities of a national championship appear to be just around the corner.