Water everywhere. Constant violent thrashing, making it impossible to see. 

Gasping for air, senior water polo captain Maya Nanayakkara fights through contact — a flying elbow, a kick to the shin. Through impaired vision, she locks her eyes on her target and hurls the ball into the back of the net. 

No, this is not the national championship. This is an average practice for Texas’ women’s water polo team. After a long day of classes, athletes are relieved to jump into the water and blow off some steam. But balancing school and sport is no easy task. 

“Our practice times are 8 to 10 p.m., so it’s nice in the sense that it’s the last thing that you do in your day,” sophomore and club vice president Brooke Murdock said. “But if you wait and push everything off, ending your day at 8 p.m. is a lot.”

It’s all about developing strategies — doing what you can to make time for deadlines and competitions. 

“Getting up early and getting good rest every night definitely helps with time management and organization,” Murdock said. “Just being on top of your stuff, no matter what, is a (good) skill to have in life.”

Finding that balance and keeping your head above water is essential for maintaining mental sanity. In the pool, however, keeping your head above the water is essential for survival. 

To the inexperienced eye, water polo may look like a simple, fast-paced game of passing and scoring. However, below the water’s surface, it’s a fight for your life. 

“It’s definitely a little brutal sometimes, but that’s the fun part,” men’s team captain Trep Thomas said. “Drowning people but safely, stuff like that.”

For Thomas, however, an engineering sophomore, the physical exhaustion doesn’t excuse missing schoolwork. 

“Especially as an engineer, there’s a lot of coursework,” Thomas said. “But I just schedule my life on water polo or doing homework basically. Finding that balance and making sure I stay on task.”

Whether players struggle with this balance or have skillfully mastered the art of organization, they all keep coming back for a shared love of the game. 

As an underrepresented sport, water polo sometimes struggles to draw an audience, especially on a campus saturated by football, basketball and baseball fans. Still, there does seem to be at least one commonality between the sports: the bloodthirsty urge to beat a rival A&M. 

When asked about season goals, players and coaches alike had one response.

“Beat Texas A&M,” men’s head coach Matt Braun said straight away.

Thomas had a similar response.

“I mean, we’d love to win the region, go to nationals,” Thomas said. “We lost to A&M last year, and that’s heartbreaking.”