Courtesy of Sean Elliot
Camel of the Edition is a series that seeks to highlight extraordinary Connecticut College athletes who have stood out from the herd due to their recent performances or as a leader on campus or on their team.
Often flying under the radar, Connecticut College water polo has been making waves in the pool. One athlete in particular, Emma Luna ‘26, a driver for the women’s water polo team, was at the top of her game in her final season of play. Luna has also been at the top of her game every other season of her career, earning scholar athlete and All-Conference honors all four years of college. A native of Wahiawa, HI, Luna came across the country without the intention of continuing the sport from high school. However, water polo found her again, and became a driving experience of her college career. Being the only water polo team in the NESCAC, the sport had its difficulties, but the memories she made with the other women around her, and the identity she found while at Conn, made it all worth it.
Recently, The College Voice caught up with Luna to ask about how she’s managed to be a consistent performer, why she came across the country to the College, and how her teammates show up for each other every day.
Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Emma Luna. I am a senior on the women’s water polo team here at Conn, as well as the captain. I am a neuroscience major, and a botany and psychology double minor, and am also part of the Public Health Pathway [and] I am from Hawaii.
How did you start your water polo career and what was your experience before college?
I think I started water polo in 7th grade. I had always swam, but I’m unbelievably uncoordinated on land, so all land sports were out of the options for me. One day, my P.E teacher told me I had a great arm and, because I swam, I should go try out for water polo. I did, and I ended up loving it. At the end of high school, I was like, ‘You know what? I really don’t want to go and play in college.” I wasn’t recruited for water polo at all. I just wanted to go to a school where I could focus on my academics. There aren’t a lot of high schools in Hawaii that offer water polo, so the number of schools we played was very limited. We were a very strong team, and were training for the State Championship title. \Coming to Conn, it’s very similar—we are the only NESCAC [school] that has water polo. We don’t get that many games here, and all of the games that we do play are in tournaments where it’s four-game weekends, and we have to travel 10 hour bus rides to play a game. I think that the dynamic of playing and practicing simply for the end result was the same in high school as it is now in college. What’s different is that we all come from various backgrounds, and our team is made up of a wide range of individuals from California, [and] a couple girls from Hawaii, Michigan, and Chicago. I’ve just learned a lot about different parts of the U.S. simply through being on a team with these people. They all bring different elements to make the team cohesive.
Explain the recruitment process and why you ended up choosing to come to Conn.
Coming from Hawaii, the weather is very different, and I wanted to experience the seasons. That was a huge reason as to why I applied predominantly to schools on the East Coast. Conn kind of just offered me everything that I was looking for in a small school. I didn’t know that there was a water polo team here until about two weeks into my first year. I ended up asking my student advisor about [the] varsity team and she said she could give me the contact for the coach. I reached out to him, and he told me to come down, get in the pool for a practice with the men’s team, and try it out. I was able to join the team, fortunately, and now I’ve been here for four years.
You were recently named to the CWPA All-Conference First Team, earning the honor all four years of your college career. Your coach, Matt Anderson, even said this: “Emma has been recognized by opposing coaches as one of the top threats in the conference.” How have you been able to maintain your success with such longevity?
I think that a big part is that I’m a very competitive individual. But what I like most, and why I think I try so hard, is because of my team. I’m not chasing these awards—that has absolutely nothing to do with it. It’s the fact that I see my teammates working so hard in practice because we want to succeed. Knowing that we were in the position to uplift one another and actually get the outcome that we want has kept me going the last four years. I do what I can to ensure that we can actually succeed, but I think that’s really the foundation of it. You want to personally succeed as an avenue to help your team succeed. Everyone’s doing their part. So I feel a responsibility to do my part and kind of try to encourage my team to be the best that they can. The only way I can do that is if I’m trying to be the best that I can. It’s unreasonable of me to ask my team to do better when I’m not playing better, you know? Holding myself to a higher standard, and to try then to hold my teammates to a standard that I believe they can all be in. I think that, from the beginning, our team has done a really good job at uplifting one another. When someone succeeds, everyone’s so happy for them as individuals, but also the fact that they’re contributing to the greater team itself. That’s just something very natural that has kind of happened. We have a really small team and almost no subs. So everyone has to be playing at their best for us to actually be successful.
The team finished 5-10 overall and 2-6 in the conference this past season—a regression in the team’s overall record in the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Do you feel that the team can get back to where it was your first and sophomore years? Are you leaving it in a better place than when you started?
I do believe that our team is capable of more than what our record shows. And I do think that if you go and look at the quarter-by-quarter scoring, it’s just so close up until the last stretch, and it can be kind of discouraging to lose a game that you know you and all of your teammates worked so hard to win. But I think that a huge setback for us is in being in the NESCAC. We’re the only school that has a water polo team in the conference, but we still have to abide by the NESCAC rules. That means we start practicing a month later than all the other teams in our conference start practicing. Other teams come back early January and start practicing and playing games. When we played Wheaton, for example, we were their eighth game of the season, whereas they were our first game. But I do think that we have the talent and the motivation to get to a place where we have more wins than losses, definitely.
This summer, the women’s team travelled to Genoa, Italy to train with the Italian national water polo team. How did the team get this opportunity and how did it contribute to your success throughout the season?
Our coach, Coach Matt [Anderson], knew two people in Italy. He’s good friends with one of the women that was on the Italian national team. So we kind of had the opportunity to actually make this trip happen. The national team just so happened to be hosting a clinic at the time that we were there, so we got to get in and play with them. They had us doing certain drills which we had done at practice before, but hearing it from someone else was especially helpful. They may notice something that your coach doesn’t because they’re just so used to it. Like little quirks that you have or little pointers that I think I definitely took away. We were having a blast while also getting our butts kicked, but it was good. Maybe that’s a good thing in the long run.
The most important thing that that trip did was team bonding. We obviously spent a whole week together, and we played water polo—we got to play beach water polo too, which was awesome. The course was set up in the ocean, which was super cool. I was really, like, all of the activities that we did all together and those memories that I cherish. I remember at the end, we had dinner with everyone that had gone, and it was just so lovely to see everyone had gotten so much closer over that week, which I think transferred over to when we actually got back on campus. We had a whole semester before we even started practicing, but we still had team bonding events and team dinners, because we were able to kind of foster that close connection. The cohesiveness of the team uplifts one another, you know? It’s easier to hold someone you’re really close to to a higher standard without them feeling offended by it. The girls on the team are definitely some of my closest friends here. I have friends outside of water polo, but I would say that I spend most of my time with girls on my team.
Last season, the team earned the highest team GPA in the country (3.77 avg.), according to the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC). Has the team culture impacted your success both in and out of the pool?
I think our coach does an amazing job at supporting us in our academics. It’s something so simple, like if you need to miss practice or you have to get out of practice early for something, he’s always super supportive of them. Some of the smartest people I’ve ever met are on my water polo team. We have a couple girls that are classics majors, government, and Hispanic studies. I’m neuroscience, so it’s just such a wide range. One girl on my team is writing her senior thesis on something related to classics, and I was like, “oh, what’s the title of your thing?” When she gave me the answer, I just said I have no idea what you’re talking about right now. I think another benefit of being at a liberal arts school is the diversity on our team when it comes to academics. We’re not all the same person—we all have our own identities as far as academics goes, which is really awesome to see. Someone recently made a joke about an exam not going great for me, and one of my teammates said I need to keep our team GPA up. That kind of, wanting to see yourself succeed, that means now we expect that of ourselves every time. My team does amazing things everyday and still show up constantly to practice. It’s empowering seeing other, other women, do it. You know, and that encourages me to then believe that I can also do it.
You’re wrapping up your senior year on the team and at Conn. What’s next for you?
I think my time in competitive water polo at a collegiate level is definitely ending with my graduating from Conn. I do love the sport so much, so I’ll probably join a master’s league somewhere. Our record this year wasn’t fantastic, but I feel like I’m ending my water polo career on a very high note. I definitely love New England too. I actually loved it so much that I’m going to get my Master’s in Public Health up at Brown University. New London was great for me in college. The arboretum here is such a huge benefit to the campus. So, yeah, I’m not ready to go back [to Hawaii] yet. Okay, but I am sweating right now. The heat is not my friend.
Is there anything else you would like to add or people you would like to shout out?
I just [want to] shout out my entire team and the men’s water polo team for giving me a family so far away from my actual family. You know, these are my people now. They’re my family here, which is awesome. So shout them out. Shout out to the water polo family!
