After playing the first five games of their season in the comfort of their home pool, the members of the No. 3 women’s water polo team (4-1, 1-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) finally hit the road this weekend to take on No. 10 UC-Santa Barbara and No. 19 Cal State Northridge. Despite the rankings of their weekend opponents, the Cardinal recognize that these next two games will test their team’s ability to maintain a high level of play without the advantage of a familiar pool or the hometown crowd.

The Stanford women are coming off a grueling weekend at the Stanford Invitational, in which they played four games within a span of just 36 hours. All things considered, it was a successful weekend for the Cardinal. They defeated California 6-4 on Sunday in a closely contested match to take third place in the invitational.

In fact, the only blemish on the Cardinal’s otherwise consistent tournament performance came in the fourth period of the team’s Saturday evening showdown against No. 2 Southern California. With the score tied at 6-6, the Stanford defense faltered and allowed the Women of Troy to jump out to an insurmountable three-goal lead. The Stanford women managed to cut the deficit to 9-7, but time expired before they were able to make any more of a comeback.

The defeat was tough to swallow for the Cardinal, especially given the confidence they had carried into their matchup against USC. Still, the team made it a point to take a lesson from their experience against the talented Women of Troy.

“That loss on Saturday was frustrating,” senior captain Laurel Champion said. “We were very well prepared for the game. But it was a great example to our new players of how well other teams will capitalize on our mistakes. It makes everyone gain a greater amount of accountability when you can pinpoint certain plays in the game where things broke down. We can all see how some small mistakes we made spiraled into giving up a goal.”

Senior two-meter Nancy El-Sakkary noted that her team’s performance in the Invitational was marked by both positives and negatives. While the tournament did showcase the strength and potential of this year’s Cardinal squad, the USC game in particular also exposed key elements of the Stanford women’s game that still need to be fine-tuned.

“The Invitational showed that we are strong as a team in all aspects of the game,” El-Sakkary said. “We were scoring in many different ways. But we still need to work on communication, especially on defense when we are transitioning from a six-on-six to being down a player, and then coming back even again.”

That the Cardinal were able to bounce back from a demoralizing defeat to take third place in the tournament was an encouraging sign itself.

“Coming back from our loss to USC and then playing well on Sunday showed that we have great resiliency,” Champion said. “Everyone on the team has a common goal, and each time we can analyze and learn from a game or play, we are one step closer to that goal. We now know what we are up against, and the challenge is thrilling.”

The Cardinal know that the ability to handle the pressure of playing on the road will be crucial to their pursuit of that common goal. And with five freshman on this year’s roster, the development of this ability will need to occur very quickly — which is why the team’s trip to sunny southern California this weekend holds a little bit of extra significance.

“It will be our first travel weekend, so everyone is pretty excited to accept the challenge that comes with playing as the visiting team,” Champion said. “Santa Barbara has some great players on their team and we are looking forward to a good game against them.”

Santa Barbara will also be hosting the annual Gaucho Invitational two weekends from now, so the Cardinal will try to use this weekend’s matchup to become acquainted with the UCSB facilities. In preparation for the tournament’s high level of competition, the Stanford women are eager to make new improvements while also adjusting to life on the road.

“We’ve watched a lot of video and focused on what we have to do both individually and as a team in order to learn from the mistakes we’ve made,” El-Sakkary said.