RE Log Fall 2019

38 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2019 RE Sports A Parting Gift Water polo state championship caps great career, season RE continues to build program at Ansin Aquatic Center Ransom Everglades girls’ water polo team gave Grace Waibel ’19 – the team’s lone senior, team captain, unquestioned leader and de facto big sister – a memorable parting gift as she concluded her Raiders’ water polo career on May 11, 2019, at Boca Raton Community High School. Waibel and her teammates arrived to the pool thrilled to be back in the state championship after a two-year absence and left with gold medals hanging around their necks after an 11-6 defeat of Winter Park High School. Waibel, who inspired the team during the regular season with tenacious defense that resulted in a team-leading 56 steals, contributed two goals, three assists and two steals, helping RE to its eighth girls’ water polo state title under Coach Eric Lefebvre. Head of School Penny Townsend presented Lefebvre and Waibel with the victory plaque and handed out each medal. The Raiders’ title victory followed two straight years of losses in the regional playoffs to Hialeah High, last year’s state champion. RE faced Hialeah again in the April 26 regional final, this time prevailing with a hard-fought 9-8 victory, which featured a game-winning goal by Waibel and last-minute saves by Claudia Pinilla ’20 . Before that game, Waibel wrote personal notes of encouragement to each of her teammates. RE moved on to score an 11-1 victory over Lake Nona in the May 10 semifinal led by three goals by Sarah Mesa ’20 . In the final, the Raiders jumped to an 8-1 lead and held on. Preston Edmunds ’20 led the scoring with five goals. Emanuelle Dooreck-Aloni ’20 scored two, and Meredith Hutchinson ’20 and Karin Belausteguigoitia ’20 each scored one. “Our stats are spread out because everybody on our team contributes,” Lefebvre said. “Grace’s outstanding performance at state paralleled her leadership all season.” Coaches Lefebvre, Robin Escobedo, Chelsea Johnson ’14 and Doc Crabtree jumped in the pool when the buzzer sounded, joining the entire squad: Isabel Almada-Sabate ’21, Belausteguigoitia, Olivia Byrd ’20, Aliyah Cohen ’22, Camille Devaney ’21, Dooreck-Aloni, Edmunds, Peri Gould ’21, Cecilia Grande-Scott ’22, Amanda Harris ’22, Alexa Hommen ’22, Hutchinson, Claire Medici ’20, Mesa, Pinilla, Megan Sabates ’22, Ana Sannia ’20, Sabrina Shipley ’22, Dylan Stone ’22, Waibel, Mary Logan Woolsey ’22 . Ransom Everglades added elite coaching experience to its athletics and physical education program while simultaneously strengthening its newly formed swim club with the hiring in July of Franz Huggins from the Areios Aquatechs swim club in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Huggins, RE’s Assistant Aquatics Director, is coaching the boys’ and girls’ middle school swim teams and teaching physical education classes. He joined RE Aquatics Director Kyle Hastings, RE’s varsity coach and head of the Ransom Everglades Aquatic Club. Huggins, who coached a number of swimmers to the Olympics, Pan American Games, South American championships and Carifta swim championships, is an American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA)-certified Level 3 coach who was a Laureus Spirit of Sport Award nominee for Coach of the Year in 2013.