Water Polo Final Four

 
Final 4:
Thomas, SC, X & Sycamore

Semifinals:
Thomas over Sycamore
SC over X

Finals:
SC over Thomas

Gear's teams always play their best polo at the end of the season. The size of SC's team gives it tremendous depth which will be an advantage in a 1 weekend tournament. They will have rested top lines as they can use their less talented lines in the early rounds. And with Gear SC will have a decided advantage as no one will outcoach him. I could be wrong but I think the only finals that a Gear coached team has lost is to another Gear coached team...back in the Worthington days.
 
aquacard said:
Final 4:
Thomas, SC, X & Sycamore

Semifinals:
Thomas over Sycamore
SC over X

Finals:
SC over Thomas

Gear's teams always play their best polo at the end of the season. The size of SC's team gives it tremendous depth which will be an advantage in a 1 weekend tournament. They will have rested top lines as they can use their less talented lines in the early rounds. And with Gear SC will have a decided advantage as no one will outcoach him. I could be wrong but I think the only finals that a Gear coached team has lost is to another Gear coached team...back in the Worthington days.
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2006 State Finals. Milford over Thomas.
 
That's correct, Milford coached by Gary Tameris won in 2006. Here's a trivia question about Geoff Gear. He's tied for the most Boy's Championship with whom? Some more trivia - he's the only Ohio Boy's coach to win with more than one school. He won with three - St. Charles, Thomas & Kilbourne.

My picks for the final four are:

Thomas - They've been the best in the regular season
Mason - Think they'll peak for the tournament
St. Francis - Best swimming team that will thrive in an all deep pool
St. Charles - Deepest team but Thomas has had their number all year

I've got Thomas over St. Francis and St. Charles over Mason in the semifinals & Thomas over St. Charles in OT in the final.
 
Expect seeding to be biased against UA. However, SC & Thomas who will benefit from the bias will lose in early rounds.

Final 4: UA v. Mason & Sycamore v. St. X

Final: UA v. Sycamore; UA wins its 8th state championship and first under de Bear.

Preview of state finals tomorrow at 6pm when UA takes on Sycamore at UA's Senior Night. Bears rule!
 
State Brackets

Brackets for the state tournaments (girls and boys) can be found at
http://www.ohiowaterpolo.com/championships/championships.html

There is historical info on this page as well, with results for each game at the state championships back to 2009. Also a list of state champions in Ohio dating back to the begining.

Info on the championships page is great for answering triva questions posed on twitter @ohiowaterpolo

As always, each teams overall record and scores for each of their games can be found at http://www.ohiowaterpolo.com/standings/standings.html

State rankings can be found at http://www.ohiowaterpolo.com/rankings/rankings.html
 
Brackets are explained at www.ohiowaterpolo.com

The first round will be:
Game 1 - Sycamore v. Sylvania & the winner plays X in Game 6
Game 2 - St. Francis v. Napoleon & the winner plays Mason in Game 7
Game 3 - Milford v. Kilbourne & the winner plays SC in Game 8
Game 4 - Thomas v. Perry & the winner plays the winner of Game 5 in Game 9
Game 5 - UA v. Princeton & the winner plays the winner of Game 4 in Game 9

Semifinals:
Winner of Game 6 v. Winner of Game 7 in Game 15
Winner of Game 8 v. Winner of Game 9 in Game 16

Finals:
Winner of Game 15 v. Winner of Game 16

SC appears to be a lock for the semifinals as it will play either Milford or Kilbourne in the quarter final.

It appears that X may have the most difficult route to semifinals as they will likely have to play Sycamore and then either St. Francis (who historically plays there best polo in the state tournament) or Mason who has beaten them several times this season.

Thomas will have to go through UA to get to SC; conversely UA will have to go through Thomas to get to SC.

Suspect that if Thomas beats UA the winner of the game with SC will win the championship.
 
Bears are rounding into post season form. Walloped Sycamore last night 7 to 3. Will be in Michigan this weekend to take on the Michigan elite. As predicted the biased seeding for the state tournament has given UA the toughest bracket. No matter. Look out as the Bears will flex their muscles this weekend as they finish preparations for their 2014 state championship run!!! Go Bears!
 
Mixed bag in Michigan this weekend. Thomas (21-8 for the season) & UA (13-12 for the season) go 2 and 2 - losing to Huron & Skyline who are the 5th & 3rd ranked teams in Michigan. SC (21-14-2 for the season) won against Saline, lost to Skyline and tied Huron & Okemos the 10th ranked team in Michigan. (No OT or shootouts in the tournament.) Thomas beat Okemos for one of its wins. UA beat Birmingham Seaholm & Dexter who by record were the weakest Michigan teams in the tournament. Thomas' other victory was against Dexter. Kilbourne (5-19 for the season) was 0 and 4.

Based upon results this weekend against mutual opponents Thomas & SC appear to be very close. UA would seem to have to raise their game a bit if they are to go anywhere in the state tournament. Otherwise expect Thomas and SC playing in the semifinal for the spot in the final. Michigan performances confirm earlier prediction. Right now Thomas & SC are the strongest teams in Ohio despite Thomas ranking. The winner of the Thomas (Thomas should get by UA), SC match will win the state title.
 
aquacard said:
Mixed bag in Michigan this weekend. Thomas (21-8 for the season) & UA (13-12 for the season) go 2 and 2 - losing to Huron & Skyline who are the 5th & 3rd ranked teams in Michigan. SC (21-14-2 for the season) won against Saline, lost to Skyline and tied Huron & Okemos the 10th ranked team in Michigan. (No OT or shootouts in the tournament.) Thomas beat Okemos for one of its wins. UA beat Birmingham Seaholm & Dexter who by record were the weakest Michigan teams in the tournament. Thomas' other victory was against Dexter. Kilbourne (5-19 for the season) was 0 and 4.

Based upon results this weekend against mutual opponents Thomas & SC appear to be very close. UA would seem to have to raise their game a bit if they are to go anywhere in the state tournament. Otherwise expect Thomas and SC playing in the semifinal for the spot in the final. Michigan performances confirm earlier prediction. Right now Thomas & SC are the strongest teams in Ohio despite Thomas ranking. The winner of the Thomas (Thomas should get by UA), SC match will win the state title.
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Thought that the Ohio teams represented themselves very well in Michigan. SC played some of the top teams and were never out matched. Always nice to see Ohio teams travel north and play some of the better teams in MI and show well.
 
Didn't mean to imply that the Ohio teams did not do well. Just meant it was frustrating for St. Charles to be in every game and lose to Skyline by 1 goal and tie Okemos & Huron. Wish there would have been OT or a shootout for the ties. You are correct all 3 of those teams are among the best in Michigan.
 
aquacard said:
Didn't mean to imply that the Ohio teams did not do well. Just meant it was frustrating for St. Charles to be in every game and lose to Skyline by 1 goal and tie Okemos & Huron. Wish there would have been OT or a shootout for the ties. You are correct all 3 of those teams are among the best in Michigan.
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Was trying to agree with you. Maybe it wasn't conveyed well. All the same - pumped to see how ohio has shown this year. I hate coaching games that end in ties. SHOOTOUT! Every time there is a tie. :)
 
Congratulations to the Lady Bears who dominated the girls side winning their 14th state water polo title convincingly. Lady Bears finish 27-2 without a loss to an Ohio team. Now the boys will complete the sweep with the boys state title this weekend!! Way to go Bears!
 
Great job UA girls on the win. Rjones you are in la la land if you think the UA boys are making it to the final let alone winning it all. I think it is up in the air at this time. We will see which team shows up to win this weekend.
 
Agree polofan that it is up in the air who will win. Earlier I picked Thomas to win it all. I still think that assuming Thomas and St. Charles meet in the semifinal the winner of that game will win the final. That said, I would not be so quick to rule out UA in the final. If they get hot they're capable of winning it all. They're a long shot but not totally out. I would say that Princeton, Napoleon, Perry, Milford, Kilbourne & Sylvania are pretty well unlikely to win. I place UA, Sycamore & St.F as long shots. Thomas, SC, Mason & X are all contenders, and I give the edge to Thomas & SC.
 
If seeds hold, we essentially have a North & South Regional - with winners advancing to title game.

Was thinking that for the girls weekend the local teams would fare better as they did not have to travel, but the finals were two non-local teams. Wondering if we'll see the same this weekend.

Definitely a wide open year for the boys, though. Can't recall when there were as many as 6 or 7 teams that have a legit chance at winning it all.

Looking at the top bracket - SC has beat everyone, so they clearly could win it all. Same with Thomas, but those 2 are in the same bracket, so they need to beat each other. But, cant sleep on UA either, as they could make a run and beat those teams too. Then on the bottom half of the bracket its X, Mason, Sycamore, and a wild card of St. F. X, Mason, Syc, and St. F all have the capabilities of beating each other, which makes it really interesting to see who will come out of that portion. It could legitimately be any of those teams, depending on how they show up in those early games.

The semis and finals are the same day, so if there is a tight semi-final game, there will need to be a lot more energy / emotion exerted. If seeds hold - Thomas vs. SC is a very tough game. And the winner has to play another game later for the title. If seeds hold again - Mason vs. X - is another very tough game with the winner in the same spot. Definitely favors the stronger bench.

All of those top 7 teams can swim / have multiple ways of scoring goals / righty & left action / solid center O & D / solid defense / good keeper / good bench. With different teams having the advantage in each one.

I say it will be one of the most exciting state tournaments in a long time! Looking forward to following on twitter.
 
Thoughts on tonight's games? Who played the best tonight? Thought sc looked good but kilbourne was over matched. Are they really that good? Thomas looked good the second half of their game vs UA. Didn't see stx or much of mason. Thoughts?
 
Great match tonight. It was unbelievable. Mason was up 7 - 1 at the end of the first. Sc sends it in to overtime after being down 9-3 at the half. Congratulations to sc on the win and back to back state championships. Congrats to mason on a great match! Most exciting match I've ever seen! Anyone have it on tape?
 
Yeah, it was a great game. Nice to see Mason in a final, wonder if the outcome would have been different if the game were played at their school like the championships in recent history. I guess the neutral site worked in SC s favor. It looked like Mason was tired from the 4 th quarter on, especially in OT. Not sure they were quite as deep and the strategy seemed to be keeping their shooters only on the offensive half of the pool for much of the game. Defensively, I think this hurt them as SC had a lot of space to work on offense and beat them on counterattacks through most of the second half. Runner-up is a great step for them and the size of their program makes me think they will be perennial contenders for a while. It s going to be hard for anyone to beat SC though with the coaching and the younger players they have returning. It looks to be the most prolific dynasty in OH since the SF teams, now that they have 4 championships in 5 years.
 
Well said scwat. Agree that SC will be the team to beat in the near future. However, this was hardly a walk over for SC. The combination of depth and the best coach in Ohio saved the d.ay for SC. The story of the tournament was SC's dominance of the second half. They did it against Kilbourne, Thomas, and finally Mason. To Mason's credit they hung in during regulation, but just ran out of gas in OT.

While Mason's future is promising, the real challenge to SC's dominance will come from St. X. Only X has the number of players equal to or exceeding SC. Last year X was runner up, this year they finished 3rd. The reality is that odds are that either X or SC will win the title in the coming years.
 
just looking ahead to next year team by team
sc-clear favorite return 10-15 players with lots of experience, lose goalie, and 4 field players who played a lot, good jv
mason-lose 6 starters, weaker jv
x-return 4-5 starters large good jv
tw-lose 5 starters, average jv
tsf-lose 6 starters, weak jv
ua-lose 1 starter, good jv
sycamore-lose 7 starters, weak jv
wk and milford-return a lot but average this year

on paper it looks like sc then x then ua then a step down from there next year, mason has been good before (runner-up with coach sullivans son) but has struggled until greg gruscek came along, will be interesting...regardless great season to all the teams especially sc and mason
 
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So since all the teams were in the state tournament, are the all tournament team and the all state team one and the same? If not when will the all state team be announced? And who selects the teams?
 
thedutchman said:
So since all the teams were in the state tournament, are the all tournament team and the all state team one and the same? If not when will the all state team be announced? And who selects the teams?
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Coaches meeting will be held November 16. Voting will take place during that meeting for the season award of All-Ohio. It will have 1st / 2nd / Honorable mention. The head coaches rank their athletes in a closed ballot and then the votes are tallied up. The top players will be listed on the 1st Team All-Ohio. All nominated names will be then voted on again for 2nd team. The top players in that vote will be named 2nd team.

Then each team is allotted 1 spot on the Honorable Mention.

The athlete with the highest amount of votes for 1st team is named Ohio Player Of The Year.

Since the votes will take place the 16th - it wont be announced publicly until the coaches have had a chance to inform their athletes of the awards, so my guess would be within a week of the votes, it will be public.

Hope that helps clarify.
 
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