Women's Water Polo: Sophomore Rigler leads her team home

Right away, he saw that she had an arm for water polo. And right away, she discovered that she loved the new and exciting sport.

“I caught on pretty fast,” Rigler said. “I had a good arm from baseball and was already a fast swimmer. Water polo was so fun, and it combined everything. I like that it’s an aggressive sport.”

Since then, Rigler has seen nothing but success in high school and with the women’s water polo team as a utility. Rigler has scored nearly 20 percent of No. 10 Princeton’s goals (28-4 overall, 5-0 Southern) this season, helping to lead the team to its first ever NCAA tournament appearance. A native of Fullerton, Calif., Rigler will be traveling back to southern California at the end of this week for the NCAA championship in San Diego. Her success was recognized late last month, when she was named the Southern Division Player of the Year and won the Eastern Championship MVP award.

At Rosary High School, Rigler swam and played water polo, lettering all four years in both. Earning the team MVP award junior and senior year, she was also recognized as the Trinity League MVP, CIF Division 1 First team, USA Water Polo Academic All-American and four-year scholar athlete. In 2009, she played on the championship team at the Olympic development program national championships, and the next year trained at the Junior National Team Selection Camp.

With all of her success, Rigler had a wide array of colleges to choose from come recruiting time. But while visiting various colleges on recruiting trips, Rigler said Princeton really stood out because it offered a piece of everything.

“It is such a good school academically that I couldn’t pass up a chance to go here,” Rigler said. “It offers the full package. When I met the team on my visit, they all loved Princeton and were so welcoming.”

Rigler said being a part of the team has been an important and special part of her first two years at Princeton.

“It is so nice to have a group of friends who you are so comfortable with and spend so much time with.”

The water polo team has only 15 girls, so she said it was easy to get to know everyone really well. And despite the small roster, this year’s team has a lot of depth.

“Our team is really close out of the pool, and we do everything together,” sophomore teammate Molly McBee said. “It’s really important for playing more cohesively as a team that we have such a good friendship. It is lots of fun.”

That friendship and camaraderie have translated well for the Tigers and especially for Rigler. So far this season, she has added 69 goals, the most on the team, for a shooting percentage of .448. An all-around player, she has also tallied 11 assists, 32 steals and 28 ejections drawn.

Rigler has earned many awards and has been recognized for individual and team success over the last two years. After leading the team in her rookie season with 56 goals, Rigler was named as a first team All-Southern honoree, named to the Eastern All-Tournament team and named Southern Rookie of the Week twice. Making contributions right from the start, she netted goals in her first eight games as a Tiger. Against Bucknell, Rigler scored a career-high seven goals, which is the program’s third-highest single game goal total.

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“Starting last year, she was already making a big impact for the team as a freshman,” McBee said. “This year, she is continuing that influential role, which is key.”

Earning five Southern Player of the Week honors in her career, her most recent acclaim was being named the 2012 Southern Division Player of the Year. In addition to her regular season domination, Rigler scored seven goals in the conference tournament to help her team grab the victory. She said winning Easterns is her most recent favorite memory during her time on the team.

“She is a really strong player, and her physical power makes her a powerhouse in the water, which is great to have on our team,” McBee said.

In the future, Rigler says she would love the opportunity to play water polo at the international level, likely in Europe where water polo is more popular than in the United States.

“It would be cool to travel and play as my job,” she said.

Rigler and the team are preparing in practice all week to take on tough opponents in California this weekend, with their first matchup against No. 3 USC on Friday.