On Thursday, March 13, the Stevenson Patriots Varsity Boys Water Polo team faced off against Conant High School Cougars to kick off their season. In a dominating and exhilarating performance, the Patriots beat Conant 17-6. 

The offense played a key role in the victory as the Patriots outscored the Cougars by 11. The win gives the Patriots a 1-0 start to the season. The 11 different players scored the 16 goals, illustrating the teams’ depth and quality early in the season. 

“There wasn’t one MVP, it was more of a team effort as 11 different players scored on Thursday, speaking to how deep the teams roster is,” Jakob Denesha ’25 said. 

The Stevenson offense held possession for most of the game, preventing much scoring from the opposition. Matt Woods ‘25 led the scoring for the team with 4 goals, while attacker Kenny Weisner ‘26 scored a hatrick with 3 goals. 

The Patriots maintained an aggressive style of play on both ends of the pool. Denesha believes that their attitude going into the game, helped their performance, despite them playing a relatively weaker team.

“Something my coach always says is play fast, physical and aggressive,” Denesha said. “Even though we were expected to win, we still treat our opponents equally and play with full effort and intensity.”

The team hopes to carry the confidence from this win throughout the rest of the season and give their full effort in the pool maintaining their intensity. They hope to carry this kind of a performance to their future games and hopefully to the state championships in May.