A special season ended early, but Ransom water polo seniors helped recharge program
The nine seniors on the Miami Ransom Everglades girls’ water polo team worked three years for the moment that finally came on May 11, 2019.
The culmination of a successful season. The return to the top.
All through their middle school years, they watched as the team they would eventually join dominated the Florida High School Athletic Association landscape. Three state titles in three years, part of a run that included seven championships over eight years. The Class of 2020 would, in a perfect scenario, fit right in and keep adding to the school’s water polo legacy.
Instead, they found themselves eliminated from the playoffs during regionals each of their first two years.
After two years of early postseason exits, Ransom Everglades found itself back in that oh-so-familiar spot it has been in for most of the past decade.
State champions. Jumping into the pool together as the last team standing.
“They were itching for it as underclassmen,” Ransom Everglades coach Erik Lefebvre said of his seniors. “What it takes is developing the mind-set. I would have told you that this group could have won, physically, when they were sophomores. But it takes that mental evolution to say we’re going to do this.”
“They were ready last year,” Lefebvre continued. “This year was going to be special. I’ve coached incredible girls teams, but this cohesive group, the sum of all the parts on this group? Probably the best I ever coached.”
Lefebvre never got the full chance to see if this year’s team could make an encore. Nor did he get a chance to see if his boys’ team, which has three of its six seniors set to play collegiately next year, could make it back to the state title match after winning it all in 2017 when the senior class was freshmen.
The FHSAA put spring sports on an indefinite pause on March 18 and ultimately canceled their seasons on April 20 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Ransom girls were undefeated at the time. Five of their nine seniors — Emanuelle Dooreck-Aloni, Sarah Mesa, Preston Edunds, Ana Sannia and Karin Belausteguigoitia — were among the team’s leading goal scorers. A sixth, Claudia Pinilla, has been their starting goalkeeper since her freshman year.
“We were undefeated on the road to states,” Edmunds said, “and it felt like something was completely stolen from us and there was nothing we could do about it.”
Enjoying the journey
Lefebvre understands the frustration, anger, sadness that could be felt at this time. He has watched his senior class grow since they were sixth graders.
But as he talked with them over the past couple months, he shifted his discussions toward a bigger picture.
The state titles were nice, sure. Definitely rewarding. Losing the opportunity to win it again hurts, he won’t deny that.
Lefebvre’s takeaway from the last four years, however, focused more on the process that got his teams to where they are today more so than the final result.
“It’s not the championship that I miss,” Lefebvre said. “It’s the whole process. This whole culmination, this cementing of everything and seeing it all come together and feeling the journey end the way it was supposed to be, whatever the end result would have been, it’s the time we lost that hurts.
“That hurts the most.”
Lefebvre watched his student-athletes mature through victory and defeat.
He saw the girls team realize that success wasn’t guaranteed just because the teams before them were successful. Those losses to Hialeah in the regional rounds in both 2017 and 2018 served as wake-up calls and helped the Raiders put together their strong push in 2019. Ransom’s road to the state title included a 6-3 win over Gulliver Prep in the regional semis, a 9-8 win over Hialeah in the regional finals, an 11-1 win over Lake Nona in the state semis and an 11-6 win over Winter Park in the championship.
“I learned to not be afraid of losing,” Belausteguigoitia said, “as those who aren’t afraid to lose learn from it and become winners.”
Nine of the 11 goals in the state championship win were scored by members of the Class of 2020. Edmunds led the way with five goals.
“These girls brought this program back to the top,” Lefebvre said. “The work ethic, the competitiveness and their attitude has now filtered down into some underclassmen that are ready to carry on what these girls have started. I know for a fact they’re going to say that whatever happens next year will be attributed to what the seniors did at their time at Ransom.”
Lefebvre also watched as one of his seniors on the boys side in Nico Valls tapped into his potential and became a blue chip recruit in the water polo circuit. Valls, who will play collegiately at Santa Clara, led the Raiders with 75 goals last season and was a contributor as a freshman in 2017 when Ransom one its first boys water polo title since 2008.
“If you ask anyone, one of the people I pushed the hardest was Nico even though he was so good,”Lefebvre said. “I knew that he had high aspirations and high goals. Now, we’re at where we’re at.”
Valls isn’t alone. Alexander Freedline will play at MIT and Perry Samimy will play at the California Institute of Technology.
“It’s exactly what they wanted to do: Create a legacy,” Lefebvre said. “Make this program better than when you found it.”
More notables
▪ Hialeah’s Paola Dominguez Castro was one of South Florida’s most formidable attackers during her prep career. She scored 372 goals over her first three seasons, including four of Hialeah’s 20 goals in its 2018 state championship win.
▪ Hialeah Gardens’ Connor Serig was in the midst of a breakout senior season. He led the state with 88 goals in 12 games. The next closest to him: Miami Gulliver Prep junior Bruno Rebessi with 77.
▪ Taylor Quintero, a rare senior on a junior-heavy Gulliver Prep team, was the top returning defender from last year’s boys state champion team and was fourth on the team with 32 steals. The Raiders were a perfect 13-0 when the season came to an end.
▪ Four seniors from Broward earned first-team All-County honors during their high school careers: Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas’ Kelby Bertolett, Hollywood South Broward’s Andrew Lopez and Mia Leto, and Cooper City’s Melody Wood.
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 11:51 AM.
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