Men’s and Women’s Teams
After a sickening 30-3 defeat in the away game that left them shaking (literally), the IC girls skipped merrily along to High Barnet with little expectation from Saturday’s game other than to have a nice time and not get as destroyed as last time they played the Bristol women.
After a quick warm-up consisting of just walking into the humid conditions of QE, Barnet, the top team in the league took the first goal of the match (not us).
But plot twist. Orsina Dessi wasn’t having any of that and stole the second goal of the game for IC.
Seconds later she managed to get two majors at once and was in danger of being benched for the rest of the game.
The IC girls didn’t know what it meant, but it was provocative - it got the people GOING.
Unfortunately it also got the Bristol girls going and IC were down 5-2 at half time.
Seasoned veteran Orsina decided that the rest of the team needed some encouragement to shoot, so casually dropped in another one, while the rest of the team had a lovely time annoying the opposition by stopping all of their goals.
So far, so good.
Bristol were only winning 6-2.
But IC wanted some goals, and it all went down in the last quarter.
Swimmer turned polo-er Georgina Powell realised that if she kept swimming towards the goal, she would get closer to the goal, and with two incredible assists from newbie Daisy Ellis this led to two more goals for IC.
10-4 to Bristol.
But wait, there’s 5 seconds left on the clock, they have the ball, and there’s been no goal from la Capitana… she was absolutely not having that.
A cheeky steal from Bristol and a quick sprint for the goal with 3 seconds to go… she shoots… she SCOOORES with 2 seconds on the clock.
A WIN FOR IC!
Oh no wait they lost 10-5, but it felt like they had won.
They were hyped and ready to face Bath the next day.
The last time Bath saw the IC girls, they were young and innocent, in their third week of term and for some of them, only in their first or second week of polo.
They came all the way from their little pool in Ethos to find themselves literally out of their depth in Bath’s enormous pool and had their first glimpse of the opposition.
Their warrior-esque face paint surely would have intimidated the newbie IC girls if they weren’t already bricking it at the fact that they wouldn’t be able to stand and have a rest in the shallow end.
IC gave it their best shot and came away with a 20-8 loss.
This Sunday it was IC’s turn to host.
Little did Bath know, the IC girls had grown strong.
The bruises from training were worth it - the innocent newbies had blossomed into experienced polo-ers, and they were ready and excited to destroy Bath.
The opposition was left ShOoK after IC set up a perfect opportunity for centre-forward Liina Jukko and scored after only 26 seconds!
The girls decided that even that wasn’t good enough, and in a record time of 23 seconds later, IC took the second goal.
Seeing the blue smudges running down the faces of the opposition as well as the 4-0 score after the first quarter was enough to satisfy IC that this one was theirs.
But Bath wasn’t giving up.
The excitement of the first quarter led to a few tactical errors from the IC team, including forgetting that they were whites and passing to the wrong team.
Bath managed to sneak in 4 goals.
Luckily our girls weren’t far behind. With a beautiful shot from leftie Maria Medeiros and two incredible counters from Maria Pitteri, they were still up 9-4 at half time.
The third quarter was owned by Georgie Powell with a repeat of her flawless performance from the previous day, scoring on another two drives.
This may be becoming a new IC tradition!
The final quarter.
With most of the players unable to see the ball due to the questionable levels of chlorine, pretty much nothing at all happened.
Little did everyone know, the IC goalie Nastya Kolesnikova has super strength and chlorine resistant eyeballs and was able to put in the performance of a century, saving not just 1, not 2, but 3 one-on-one shots IN A ROW.
Absolutely outrageous.
After the longest quarter in history with no substitutions, time-outs or goals - even after some very desperate counters from the captain - it was finally over.
IC had won 12-5.
With another win last weekend against Birmingham and a draw against Cambridge, the IC girls are looking seriously strong this year and are now enjoying a well-deserved break before their final two games next term.
Watch this space.
