Even though Throck beat me to it, I will not be denied one last rant about the SCIAC. First of all I want to congratulate the members of the Oxy water-polo team that were named to the all-conference teams. Being recognized with a spot on either the first team or second team is truly an honor to be proud of. So congrats Nanea Fujiyama, Rachel Adeleye, and Tessa Bailey-Findley. That said, these teams that were selected are an absolute joke. There is no doubt in my mind that Annie Oxborough-Yankus had a great year, and she did so for the best team in the conference. However, the fact that she was named Athlete of the Year just doesn’t make any sense. The only stat available for any Pomona-Pitzer player is goals scored, which suggests to me that this is the biggest factor in determining a player’s performance, at least for the Sagehens. Oxborough Yankus had a very nice season with 61 goals, but that doesn’t even put her as the top scorer on her team (freshmen Alyssa Woodward had 79). Nanea Fujiyama and Jaime Nippert both had absurdly impressive seasons. Fujiyama had 85 goals, 40 assists, and 60 steals; all with other teams basing their defense around stopping her. Nippert one-upped Nanea with 91 goals, 52 assists, and 64 steals. How is it that one of these women did not get named Athlete of the Year makes me wonder exactly what goes on when these teams are selected.
My disappointment in these selections continues with the snubbing of Jill Stein of Redlands and Tessa Bailey-Findley from the 1st team. I know I just said that being named to the second team was an honor, but to undervalue the effort of these two is unacceptable. Stein’s offensive year was solid, as she racked up 59 goals and 33 assists, but it was her defense that was what sets her apart. She had 111 and steals, 32 more than any other player in either Div. I or Div. III. Bailey Findley ended the year with numbers comparable to any of the top players in the nation: 74 goals, 28 assists, and 64 steals. Again I pose the question, what is going?
Ok, I think I’m done…no wait…why wasn’t Corrine Casey put on a team? I don’t know if
she should definitely have been put on a team, but someone has to at least raise the question. What Corrine brings to a team is not as visible on a stat sheet as some other players. She’s a scrappy player who provides energy and leadership to her team. Statistically, though she only had 31 goals and 32 steals she was toward the top of the conference with 53 assists.
So how do these errors happen, I mean the coaches voting on these selections have all the information available to them right? They have seen everyone in the conference play, and have detailed statistics to look over don’t they? I doubt it. Finding the statistics that I have listed above were quite difficult to find. In fact, the stats were so difficult to find that I almost believe that a Watergate style cover-up is taking place.
My suspicions of a “Polo-gate” first began when I went to the thesciac.org (at least the conference managed to call dibs on sciac.org…oops). The conference website does not have any water-polo statistics. Strange…maybe all the water-polo stats are on some other website, like this NCAA Water Polo Stats website. Well, they sort of are, except this site does not have stats for Pomona, Whittier, La Verne, Cal Lu, Cal Tech, and it does not even have CMS listed as a school. Again very convenient for the SCIAC.
Even individual team websites seemed to be in on the conspiracy. Cal Lu and Cal-Tech put up a pdf of their stats, but they did not have any players that were rated questionably highly. As I said before, Pomona-Pitzer only has goals scored listed on their website which makes judging their players very difficult. going purely by goals scored Bailey-Findley or Jill Stein should have clearly made the first team over Perri Hopkins who only had 35 goals. This also shows that Corrine Casey could have been named to one of these teams despite her lower number of goals scored. Whittier only mentions the statistics of Katrina Thoreson, their 2nd-team All-SCIAC player, who herself made a strong case for first team honors with 71 goals, 24 assists, and 63 steals. Laverne, and CMS do not have any statistics on any website that I have found, so it’s hard to imagine Candace Filippelli having a better season than Bailey-Findley, Stein, or Thoreson yet she made the 1st-team.
If it took me hours to figure all of this out do you really think that everyone making these selections had all the information they needed to make the right decisions. While Polo-gate may not go down as one of the biggest conspiracies of all time, I think that it’s still something to consider. Way to blow it SCIAC.
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