This past weekend, the Hopkins water polo team defeated Fordham University and fell to Wagner College in two of their most closely contested conference matches yet. Instrumental to the team’s success was this week’s Athlete of the Week, junior captain and goalie, John Wilson.
After being co-named the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference Defensive Player of the Week last week, the pressure was on for Wilson to remain poised in both of the team’s matches. Luckily, Wilson is not unfamiliar to the limelight. Named a second team all-American last season, this junior standout currently ranks fifth in Hopkins history in career saves. This weekend, Wilson certainly lived up to his titles, tallying a total of 26 saves, four steals and one assist.
Though Wilson’s performance would indicate otherwise, the added pressure that comes with being a goalie is certainly not something all athletes can handle well. Following two tremendous games this past weekend, The News-Letter was able to sit down with Wilson to learn how he handles the stress and gain insights into this year’s Hopkins water polo team.
The News-Letter: With a 12-11 double overtime victory, and a narrow two-point defeat, this weekend’s games were incredibly close. How do you handle the pressure of being the last line of defense against an opponent’s goal and potential victory?
John Wilson: As a goalie, directing the defense is arguably equally important as blocking shots yourself, so I see my position as more of an extension of our team defense than as a last stand there to bail out the defense when all else fails. That being said, there is a lot of mental pressure knowing that you are involved with every scoring opportunity the other team has, so I do my best to keep my head in the game and rely on my fundamentals.
N-L: Going into this season as an all-American, you had already proved yourself as a tremendous player. How did you hope to add to this momentum moving forward? What were your goals for the season?
JW: While we were extremely proud of our success last year, we’re constantly looking to improve as a team and develop our younger players. Personally, as this is my first season as an upperclassman and as the most senior goalie, I have been working to adopt a larger leadership role both in and out of the pool. As a team, we are hoping to win our conference championship tournament at the end of the season in November, and I think that goal is well within reach.
N-L: Given a much shallower pool, playing water polo at Hopkins is very different than playing in other pools. What adjustments do the team and yourself have to make when you travel to away games?
JW: Shallow pool and normal water polo are two very different games, but fortunately everyone on the team has a strong foundation playing in normal depth pools. For goalies, we are allowed to stand on the bottom and do what we can to use it to our advantage for home games. However, most of our away games are played in deep pools. These situations are more natural for us because everyone on the team learned to play in deeper pools before Hopkins.
N-L: Throughout the season in general, and particularly this past weekend, points and steals came from a wide variety of players across all four years. What can you say about the depth of the team?
JW: We’ve traditionally been well conditioned and deep compared to our competition, and despite losing one of the best senior classes in team history as well as some other key players from last season, we’ve still had a similarly large number of key contributors this season. Our seniors have stepped up to fill the shoes of last year’s class and I’m also especially proud of the younger guys for shouldering some crucial playing time and responsibility.
N-L: The team faced some hard losses early on in the season. As one of the team captains, how have you helped keep morale high going into this weekend?
JW: We knew coming into the season that our schedule would be especially tough. We faced 6 of the top 15 best teams in all of water polo in our first two weekends of competition, which was a good growing experience for the team and helped get the freshman up to speed right off the bat. After that rocky start, we’ve done our best to stay positive and focus on our conference matchups, which determine seeding for our tournament at the end of the season.
N-L: Following this weekend, the team has a substantial amount of time off. How will the team utilize the next few weeks to prepare for future opponents?
JW: We have three weeks without games before our tournament at Santa Clara University in California. This time will be a great opportunity for the team to resettle and prepare for the important games coming up at the end of the season. The season flies by, so it is nice to have a slightly less hectic break to thoroughly prepare for the second half of the season.
We will see if that time off serves Wilson and the Jays well when Hopkins heads out west on Oct. 22 for games against St. Francis College, California Baptist University, Fresno Pacific University and Santa Clara University.
