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Player Spotlight
STEPHEN LALKA
Illpolo.com's All-Illpolo Team
Stephen Lalka helped Waubonsie
Valley achieve a 20-9 regular season record and the Warriors reached the
sectional finals in 2005 as well. He was named to the All-Illpolo fourth
team at the end of the season and also earned All-Sectional team honors
for his performance as well. We asked Stephen the following
questions in an exclusive Illpolo.com interview:
College choices, major, current GPA?
College: University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)
Major: Kinesiology with a focus in Pre-Physical Therapy
GPA.: 3.5
Experience, Club Team, Zone Teams, Off-season work?
I really only swam in the offseason because I
only started playing my freshman year. There was only one guy on our JV
team that had played before high school. Even on WV's Varsity this year
there were only two guys who had played before high school
When did you start? How? Where?
I started because some of the guys on the swim team my freshman year were doing it. Andy Bax moved up to varsity sometimes because he was a monster so I ended up with the most goals on JV.
Awards and achievements?
Junior year honorable mention All-Sectional team. Senior year first team All-Sectional.
Personal interests? Music? TV shows?
I love rolling out in my 86' Toyota Tercel
Stat Wagon and playing video games. I watch the last scene of Breaking
Away before a lot of games. My favorite bands are Fall Out Boy and Jedi
Mind Tricks.
Goals for the future with polo? School? Life?
I will play polo on UIUC's club team if i make it. I want to keep the grades up and be able to work with athletes after I make it out of college.
Motivation, inspiration?
My motivation is mostly from the other guys on
the team. The nice thing about polo is that you are woorking together a
lot more than in swimming. The common goal is there in both but
communication makes the experience much more fuffilling.
First Season role?
My first season My role was to piss my coaches off by picking the ball up on top (or even worse, cobra) and skip the ball over the goal.
Soph, Junior year roles?
Sophomore: I passed the ball a lot and had the most assists on the team. Junior year: Junior I think i had a lot to do with our good defense. Our communication in the pool was really great.
