How team went from unsure to undefeated
All it took for Mount Pleasant High School was making the squad coed
When Santa Clara County gave approval for high school sports to return, a new obstacle emerged for the girls and boys water polo teams at Mount Pleasant. Neither team had enough players.
So they joined forces, becoming a 12-player coed team.
They also became champions, winning the Blossom Valley Athletic League’s Santa Teresa Division with an 8-0 record.
“It was a really pleasant surprise,” longtime head coach Andy McKay said. “We started out just happy to be back in the pool and seeing each other again.”
Coed water polo teams aren’t uncommon in the BVAL. Mount Pleasant was one of five in the
league. But Mount Pleasant was the only one with girls in the starting lineup. And Mount Pleasant was the only one that went undefeated.
“I wasn’t too worried about it,” senior Chayse Waters said of the merger. “The girls have always practiced with the guys. It wasn’t anything new to them. I knew they could hold their own.”
The girls, and their parents, acknowledge there was some hesitancy on their side. Though the rules of the sport are standard — save for a slightly smaller ball for the girls game — some of the seven girls who joined the coed team had concerns about how they would match up physically.
“It’s intimidating going against these giant guys with six-packs,” said Holly Hermange, one of two girls who started for the Cardinals.
“It was a lot of challenges,” said the other girl in the starting lineup, sophomore Isabella Perez. “We were scared they’re going to be stronger than us because they’re stronger, bigger and half of them are taller. That was a challenge, but it was more mental than a physical challenge.”
(Both girls had an older sibling on the team; Tony Perez and Heather Hermange were seniors.)
Brenda Serrano-Perez said she and other parents had conversations with the coaches to ensure they alerted referees if play was getting too rough.
“At times,” Serrano-Perez said with a laugh, “you catch yourself saying things out loud that you weren’t expecting, mumbling: ‘Don’t you drown my daughter because I’m gonna get you.’
“I suspect some feel that’s part of the game,” SerranoPerez added. “If you’re going to get in the game, you have to expect the rough stuff. I think the experience Holly and my daughter had in training with males and females gave them more confidence that they could defend themselves … My daughter and Holly turned it into anger, but in a good way.”
Holly noticed something else.
Being ‘underestimated’
“Teams underestimated us going into games,” she said. “They’d be coed, and the boys would ignore the girls we had in the pool.”
Mount Pleasant had two games against Silver Creek, the only all-boys team in the league. Mount Pleasant won the first meeting in double overtime.
“When we won that first game,” said McKay, “I was telling our kids they’re probably physically stronger than you in a lot of ways, but that’s not just the way you win games necessarily. Use your brains and your skills”
In the rematch, on senior night at Silver Creek, Mount Pleasant won 9-7 to complete its undefeated season.
“They just really surprised me,” said McKay, marking his 30th year at the school.
“They surprised themselves; they never fell apart as a team,” Serrano-Perez said. “Watching a game, you can see that the other team, at some point, becomes disarrayed. They aren’t talking to each other, calling to each other. Our kids got to a point where they can criticize each other constructively during a game, and I was so proud of that.”
Although the students saw the season as a triumph, they weren’t surprised that they worked so well together — boys and girls.
“There’s definitely a sense of family among all of us,” senior Matthew Bolli said. “I played all four years. Tony played all four years. Chayse will play all four years. We’re a small team, and practicing together every day gives us an upper hand with team chemistry.”