For the Michigan water polo team, the 2009 season ended with an important question: how will the Wolverines fill the gaps left by the incredibly talented graduating senior class? Twenty-six games into the 2010 season, this year's incredibly talented junior class has been the answer.

“They are very strong,” said Michigan coach Matt Anderson about the juniors — Keller Felt, Alison Mantel, Lauren Orth, Ryley Plunkett, Cara Reitz and Sarah Roberts. “This class is good from top to bottom and they cover all areas, which is very nice to see.”

Of the 284 goals scored by 25 players on the team this season, 130 have come from the six juniors.

Anderson called Orth’s ball-handling “exceptional,” praised the way Mantel — who after this weekend is now fourth on the all-time goals list — has led the offense and deemed captain Cara Reitz, the “energizer bunny out there.”

Felt has strongly established herself as a sprinter and counter attacker this year, while Plunkett has been both an offensive and defensive factor, earning the CWPA Western Division Defensive Player of the Week two weeks ago for her 18-steal weekend. Lastly, Roberts has been huge with goal scoring, netting a hat trick against No. 7 San Jose State last month.

“Our class is pretty special because each of us fills a specific role,” Felt said. “We all play different positions and we’re all at the same level.”

Each has her own strength, which when combined, makes Michigan an overwhelming opponent. And over the last three years, the class has grown both in skill level and as friends.

“We just know each other really well,” Orth said. “So playing together is fun, and we just mesh really well as a unit.”

Felt explained that most of them were on the same recruiting trip together, so they bonded almost immediately. Orth said that now, they either live together or hang out a majority of the time.

“We’re always together,” Mantel said of the six of them. “We love each other. It’s like a family. We’re sisters.”

The camaraderie they have outside of the pool is pivotal to the chemistry they have inside of it, and a huge part of why the junior class is so invaluable to the team.

“We all have similar personalities,” Felt said. “We’re all mellow and we all get along really well. And over the last three years, more and more, we’ve grown to know what each one of us could do in the water and transfer that into winning games.”