It has been full of frustration for Peotter, who tore her right latissimus dorsi muscle during workouts in January, 2007, midway through her junior year for the CdM girls’ water polo team.
It was then that Peotter first showed how much she loved the sport, trying to ignore the pain.
“I just played through the pain, which was probably not a very smart decision,” she said. “It hurt pretty bad during the Santa Barbara Tournament [of Champions] last year, and toward the end of the season the pain really got incredibly bad. I couldn’t really bear it. So, I don’t know, I didn’t get much playing time anymore because of it. It was kind of painful just to watch.”
That’s what she had to do last summer, too, when CdM went as a club team to Hawaii for the Hawaiian Invitational tournament. Peotter was there only as a spectator.
“She almost didn’t go to Hawaii with us,” Corona del Mar Coach Aaron Chaney said. “She thought, ‘Why should I go to Hawaii if I can’t play? I can’t do certain things. I can’t go on ocean swims, or jump off the cliff because we were going cliff-jumping.’ But I told her that if she wanted to come back and play, it’d be important for her to go. She’s still part of the team, and it’s kind of hard to not do all the team activities then come back and play. You’re going to feel like an outcast.”
Then, working her way back into shape, she suffered a back injury. When she tried to return too soon from that in the fall, she aggravated the side injury.
