Waterford — Waterford High School’s enrollment, below 800 students in 2024, qualifies its athletic teams to play like-sized programs, both within the Eastern Connecticut Conference and their state playoff division.

Then there’s softball, a five-time state champion, often matched with Class LL opponents and other state heavyweights because of its recent success — and their wish to play the best. The Lancers play four of the state’s top six teams as ranked by the final media poll from last season.

And that’s just the way they want it.

“I want to play the best teams,” said Waterford High School coach Andy Walker, who led the program to the 2019 state title. “I think that in order to really challenge yourself, you need to play the best and that’s where a lot of the growth is going to happen. Those games will help us in the long run and prepare us for the state tournament.”

Waterford often must piece together its schedule, given that the reigning back-to-back-to-back ECC champions discover other teams in the conference using the “opt-out” option against them.

“We’ve been a pretty good team in the state over recent years,” Walker said. “The ECC doesn’t provide us with a lot of ECC games, some teams opt-out. We only get 11 games for the ECC. So we have to venture out and get nine teams to play us.”

Some of the notable games for this season include No. 1 Masuk, No. 8 Newtown, No. 2 Southington, and No. 4 Jonathan Law, all ranked in the top eight of this season’s first media poll. In an attempt to fill their schedule, the Lancers also face Chariho and Westerly.

“Those teams are considered to be perennial powers, but these girls (Waterford) see themselves as one as well,” Walker said. “They believe that they’re with the Cheshires, Masuks, Southingtons — and they see themselves competing at that level with those teams, because they believe they can be the best.”

After hitting a home run in Waterford’s 12-0 mercy-rule victory against Ledyard earlier this week, senior captain Emilia Podeszwa said: “We approach all of our games with the same intensity, but it’s definitely a little more going into those games — they mean a little bit more.”

Junior Paige Jessuck said: “We always want to keep our foot on the gas no matter who we play. We can’t take anybody lightly.”

Waterford is 0-6 against Southington, Masuk and Newtown over the past two years. Masuk, in particular, has ended Waterford’s past two seasons in the state playoffs. Still, the coaches and players view those games as opportunities to improve.

Even with its highly competitive schedule, Waterford has serious ambitions to make a deep run in this year’s playoffs.

Podeszwa said: “I have a lot of faith in us to do well this season. We look great so far, so I’m excited for what we can become.”

“Right now,” Walker said, “we’ve got Griswold on Friday. We see Masuk and the other tough teams lurking in the distance, but our focus is one game at a time. The girls come prepared every day regardless. They know that ultimately, we want to win our division, win the ECC championship again and compete in the state championship.”

z.cunningham@theday.com