Women's water polo feature

Orwig a force in the net for Women of Troy

By Caroline Nguyen
Staff Writer

thletes in action reveal much of themselves to the observant spectator.
Take Bernice Orwig, the starting goalkeeper for the No. 8 USC women's water polo team.
Orwig spends a good deal of the four quarters treading water and coaching her team's defense with a voice that is accustomed to being heard and heeded. When an opponent is in scoring position, waving her arm around like a whip ready to unleash the ball, Orwig remains calm. She simply raises her 5-foot-11 frame out of the water and in the blink of an eye and deflects the ball that was surely going into the net.
Talk with Orwig one-on-one, and in spite of a humble, matter-of-fact disposition, one gets the impression that nothing much seems to faze this 20-year-old athlete.
When Orwig encounters an obstacle, she'll just step back and size it up. Then she'll stare it down.
Perhaps Orwig's penchant for calm in the face of adversity comes from a long history with water polo. After all, the sport has presented Orwig with many challenges ever since she first took it up in high school.
It started out innocently enough. Orwig's swim coach encouraged the All-American to try her hand at water polo. An off-season pastime, Orwig thought. Why not?
So she added water polo to her repertoire of athletic know-how and joined the Savanna High boys' team. Orwig eventually found her niche on the team and in the sport as a goalie. She played on the boys' team for three years and was captain and MVP for two of those years. Not only was Orwig the first female to earn All-Orange County honors in boys' water polo, she was also crowned the school's Female Athlete of the Year as a junior and senior.
After graduating, Orwig enrolled at Cypress Junior College and the prep-school success followed. Orwig swam competitively and was also a member of the men's water polo team as a freshman. Although she took a hiatus from water polo her sophomore year, she continued to rake in the athletic honors for the remainder of her junior-college career. Orwig earned All-American honors in swimming (the 50 and 100 free) and was named to the Cypress Hall of Fame.
You might be impressed with this one-of-a-kind athletic rsum, but Orwig shrugs it off--especially her accomplishment of playing with men.
"(Playing on the men's teams) is no different than playing on any other team," Orwig says. "It was the only thing I really knew about. I didn't even know about women's (water polo) programs until the middle of my junior year."
Which brings us to the next major challenge of Orwig's life: the potentially rocky transition from Cypress to the big-time at USC. In typical Orwig fashion, she quickly dealt with the initial misgivings and made the change a positive experience.
"(The transition has) actually been pretty good," Orwig says. "I expected the worst coming in here, with the different college atmosphere and everything. At first it was hard adjusting, but I like it here now."
"Bernice hasn't had a problem making the transition," USC Coach Jovan Vavic said. "She adapted incredibly well."
In addition to coping with the transfer, Orwig had to deal with the burden of her coach's expectations.
"Bernice will be one of the most outstanding goalies in collegiate water polo," Vavic said in the preseason. "With her, this team will be 100 percent better."
Orwig has more than lived up to her billing as the team's defensive anchor. After an early-season loss, Vavic lamented his team's weak offense. But of his goalie, Vavic could only say, "Bernice Orwig was awesome."
Now, with the regular season over and postseason play starting this Friday, it's obvious that Vavic's early assessment of Orwig was right on target.
"Bernice has been outstanding the entire season," Vavic says. "She's only been with the team for a few months, but she's improved tremendously.
"She's more confident now, and she's making better passes to start the offense. She's doing a great job with coming out of the cage and stealing balls. Basically, she's our best player."
This leaves Orwig to be her own worst critic. "There's so many things right now (that I'd like to improve about my game). I've been out of (water polo) for a year, because I didn't play my last season at Cypress. I'm just getting back in shape and allowing everything to come back together."
Between studying history and playing water polo at USC, Orwig moonlights as the U.S. National B team goalie. She trains with the squad twice a year and makes one trip with it as well. This year, Orwig will play with the team in a tour through Europe.
Before she can pack her bags, however, Orwig and her teammates must see to the rest of the 1997 season. The Women of Troy are 9-13 overall and 0-6 in conference play. The ride only gets bumpier going in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships this weekend.
"This is a definite building season," Orwig says. "We still have a lot of room to improve, and I can see it coming. By the end of the season, everything should be in place for the team.
"(Personally), I want to be able to say that I worked as hard as I possibly could. I want to win some more games, and I want to see the team come together. And definitely," Orwig adds with a bright smile, "(I want to) make it to the nationals."
The road to the national championships is undoubtedly lined with obstacles for the Women of Troy. If Orwig's poise in the pool is any indication, however, these are obstacles she will size up and eventually stare down.