RHS junior Jayden Siler was glad to be heading up to Donner Lake for his water polo team retreat Sept. 10. And he wasn’t the only one. The weekend visit served as a relaxing getaway for all coaches and players on the varsity team, as well as to bond and sharpen the team’s focus about the upcoming season.

“I was glad that our team had the opportunity to bond because at first, it was like the seniors were friends and then there were the juniors, so like we were separate,” Jayden said.

Fortunately though, by all staying at senior Pat Guinn’s family cabin, Jayden believes that as a whole, the team atmosphere became much tighter.

“We kind of created our own team jokes and we’re now friends with everyone,” he said.

Beyond this, the boys also participated in a number of fun activities to draw the themselves closer together as a team.

“We came in, we ate, then we went on a hike,” said Quincy Dungan, another junior on the team. Then, true to character, the Polo players wasted no time jumping into the pool – this one a much bigger and Donner Lake-sized arena.

After playing water polo in the lake, the boys would also visit abandoned train tracks, elect Pat Guinn and Ryan Doer as their team captains and even hold a talent show among other things.

However, the trip to Donner was not entirely fun and games, as the team also took quality time to lay out individual and team goals for the season as well.

“Now we are going to work on those [goals] during practice and we’ll always want to remind ourselves what our goals are,” Jayden said.

By the end of the trip, these water polo players had not only developed a plan for their future games, but a unity as well that may well prove hard to beat this upcoming season.