Allan Hancock College will introduce a women’s water polo program come fall. The team will be funded in part by money formerly allocated to Hancock’s women’s cross country team. Practices are set to begin on Aug. 15, and the team will begin competition in September.
Ben Britten, assistant coach for Hancock’s nascent swim team, will serve as the head coach for the water polo program. It’s been only a year and a half since he moved to the area with his fiancée, he said, but getting a comprehensive aquatics program off the ground at Hancock has been a focus the whole time.
“We’ve been talking about it since I got here,” he said.
So far, Britten said, 12 students have committed to start playing water polo in the fall. His immediate goal for the team is to get them in the water and practicing. In the long term, he hopes to build a program that can go toe-to-toe with other community colleges in Southern California.
The team will practice primarily in Hancock’s pool. Right now, they’re reaching out to USA Water Polo and local organizations to pull together the basic equipment needed for the team to start practicing—balls, cages, and swim caps.
Athletic Director Kim Ensing said the greatest challenge for Hancock’s future water polo team will be its pool, which is small. She pointed out that AHC’s football program enjoyed years of success before the recent revamping of the areas where they practice and condition.
“The facility will not necessarily hinder our program from being successful, although functional-wise it will always be a challenge when you don’t have a facility on campus where you can compete,” she said. “Someday, it would be nice to have our own aquatics facility. That’s a long-term goal.”
Caija McNeil, a sophomore at Hancock, played water polo and swam with local club One Way and Santa Maria High School. When Mike Ashmore was charged with pulling together a swim team at Hancock, he reached out to her, and she jumped at the opportunity.
“I went out for the first day and there was, I believe, six of us,” she said. “It’s been exciting to watch us go from six to about 15 this year. Watching it grow has been amazing.”
After a year of swimming, Ashmore and Britten asked her to participate in the upcoming water polo program. McNeil said that she and her fellow players have reached out to the youth water polo programs they grew up in and are enthusiastic about the opportunity to continue to swim and play water polo.
“Any opportunity to keep going with my sports is great,” she said. “I was very excited to hear I was going to keep competing, keep swimming, stay in shape still. I was very excited to hear that we had gotten the water polo team started.”
Dominique Delgado, a graduate of Cabrillo High School and San Diego State University, committed to help coach for the fledgling program. When Coach Ashmore reached out to her, Delgado jumped at the chance. Water polo secured her a scholarship at SDSU and gave her team-building skills that she uses at her job, and she is eager to keep those doors open for other women.
“It’s given me so many opportunities,” she said.
Water polo players need to train hard in the pool to stay competitive during the off-season, and one of the best ways to do so is to cross-train through swimming. Coach Britten’s hope is to give local athletes, whose talent was forged in the crucible of local clubs, an aquatics program in which to compete at the community college level.
“We want to run a program that’s comprehensive for both sports,” Britten said. “You have to be able to swim to play water polo. A lot of the conditioning with water polo has to come from a swimming background. You have to get down the pool and back if you want to be competitive.”
Athletic Director Ensing said student feedback has long indicated an interest in water polo and that aligning the college’s athletic programs with that interest will be a boon for the school in general.
“You got 15 young ladies saying that they want to play women’s water polo—you have to listen to that,” she said. Aligning sports programs with student interest, according to Ensing, increases enrollment, transfers, GPAs, and retention.
“Athletics are an outstanding structure for expanding student success,” she said. “It’s about campus-wide supporting a very specific group of students and helping to further their academics.”
As for the women’s cross country program, which faced low interest and was suspended, Ensing is practical.
“Why squeeze blood out of a turnip?” she asked.
Contact Staff Writer Sean McNulty at smcnulty@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 23-30, 2015.