The Morning Swim Show, Nov. 14, 2011: Courtney Mathewson Ready to Help USA Water Polo Prepare for Olympics

PHOENIX, Arizona, November 14. A few weeks after helping the USA women's water polo team win at the Pan American Games, Courtney Matewson joins today's edition of The Morning Swim Show to relive the experience of defeating Canada and qualifying for the Olympics.

Mathewson talks about the nailbiting shootout rounds and what it meant to qualify for the Olympics. She also looks back on the world championships and looks ahead to training for the Olympics. Watch the full show in the video player below and visit SwimmingWorld.TV for more video interviews.

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Show Transcript: (Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Peter Busch: Welcome to The Morning Swim Show for Monday, November 14th 2011. I'm your host Peter Busch. In the FINIS monitor today we'll talk to Courtney Mathewson. She just helped the USA Women's Water Polo Team to the gold medal at the Pan-American Games. Courtney joins us right now in the FINIS monitor from Anaheim, California. Hi Courtney, welcome to The Morning Swim Show. How are you?

Courtney Mathewson: I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me today.

Peter Busch: Pleasure to have you – that gold medal game in Guadalajara was an instant classic – 27 to 26, is that right?

Courtney Mathewson: That's right, it was an insane game. I have never done something like that before and it was a special game and I'm glad we came out on top, and the bid to the Olympics.

Peter Busch: And 13 rounds of penalty shots before you guys finally beat Canada.

Courtney Mathewson: It was crazy. After we had finished overtime, we went to the shootout and thought you just go through the rounds once and then the goalie is going to come up, Betsey's going to have a big save, and we're done and we won and we're going to qualify. And it kept going round after round and really no one was missing. I missed one shot and then number 7 from Canada missed the first shot as well, and then we all shot three more times after that. So it was kind of weird, you couldn't believe that it just kept on happening.

Peter Busch: So when you go 13 rounds, do you end up doing more than one penalty shootout or do they have enough girls on the team so everyone does one?

Courtney Mathewson: Well there are five shooters that they choose before the shootout and you can't change them. So we're all shooting – I shot second, there's Kelly Rulon and myself and Brenda Villa, Heather Petri and Maggie Steffens. And you just go through the line and you keep on going until someone misses or someone gets the block.

Peter Busch: I was going to say at some point the coaches have to get involved or the goalies are shooting on themselves.

Courtney Mathewson: Yes, basically it's like the goalkeeper has to come up with the big block – usually that's what happens. Not too often do people miss five meters especially in tense situations. Everyone wants to score, everyone wants to help their team win.

Peter Busch: Well you fell on the back of the net a lot at the Pan- American Games. I think 14 goals was your total in five matches there?

Courtney Mathewson: Yes, I finished pretty strong but at that point anyone can score really, it's like if you're open you're going to shoot, your teammates are going to give you the confidence to shoot so it's just so happened the last two games I had a lot of open luck so I was lucky to be able to get them.

Peter Busch: The girls had kind of a disappointing world championships earlier in the year. What are you guys doing differently now, if anything?

Courtney Mathewson: We did a bit of reflection after Shanghai, talked about how we could be better teammates, how we could come together better as a team and just ultimately work even harder than we had already been doing before. So we came back after the break ready to get out there basically and prepare for Pan-Am's and basically prepare for playing Canada. I think everyone really came together because you really need to see how close we came and I think it's was two months, not even two months – maybe a month. We had training from January up until July at that point and we made so much progress in that short amount of time after we came back from World Championships so I think that was a huge factor in our success at Pan-Am's.

Peter Busch: Do you think you're playing well enough now to be in that gold medal conversation for London or does more work need to be done?

Courtney Mathewson: I think we can always improve on – I mean there are tons of things we can improve on – six on five, five on six – and I think it's always about getting better and training harder and that's going to be the best opportunity to eventually be in the position of playing for a medal at the Olympics.

Peter Busch: What do you mean training harder? What does that mean specifically for you? Is it outside the pool stuff you do or just a lot of practice?

Courtney Mathewson: It's a combination of both – not only taking care of yourself while you're in the water at practice, whether you're in the weight room lifting, or we you run a lot, right after weights or swimming – there are so many different steps that go into training inside the water and I think when I say train harder I mean step up the intensity and the competitiveness in every aspect really, and then outside the water taking care of yourself, making sure you're hydrated, eating healthy, not putting yourself in a position where you could possibly injure yourself or get sick or whatever it may be.

Peter Busch: I heard you got into water polo because you didn't want to go to swim practice anymore, is that right?

Courtney Mathewson: That is very true. And I'm sure if you ask a lot of water polo players that start out as swimmers, then saw water polo as a team sport and just gravitated towards that. That's sort of been the case for me, I swam for a long time, started playing water polo, and I loved the team aspect, getting together, playing with your friends, and then I've been playing since then. I was 9 years old and I'm 25 now.

Peter Busch: Well it gave you the outlet to have a fantastic college experience. You went to UCLA, you won the National Championship four years in a row, you got to go to the White House – I think we have that photo to show the viewers – and meet the President. I mean what an experience that water polo has given you.

Courtney Mathewson: I've been very blessed. I've had an opportunity to not only go to UCLA and have an education but to part of four national championship teams, just play with the great players from Olympians and national team members, we ran great coaches and they continue my career and play abroad. I've played in Australia and also in Spain and then not to mention all the places that we've been able to go with the national team, literally all over the world. I've been very, very lucky with my experience with water polo.

Peter Busch: Will you try and play beyond next year or too soon to tell?

Courtney Mathewson: Too soon to tell. Right now the focus is just 2012 and making that team, so hopefully all goes well then from there on and then I'll be able to decide what to do after.

Peter Busch: Any idea what the next journey for you is?

Courtney Mathewson: After water polo?

Peter Busch: Yes, after water polo.

Courtney Mathewson: I'm getting married on Saturday so that's the first step and then I'm not really too sure. I haven't really put too much thought into it, but like I said this has been the focus for the past two years so I'm trying to accomplish goals and then hopefully everything will be able to fall into place and then we will figure out what to do at water polo.

Peter Busch: Well have a great wedding day.

Courtney Mathewson: Thank you.

Peter Busch: Thank you very much for joining us.

Courtney Mathewson: Yes thank you for having me. Thanks Peter.

Peter Busch: Okay, that's Courtney Mathewson joining us in the FINIS monitor today from Anaheim, California. And that's it for today's show. I'm Peter Busch reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.

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