Club Water Polo

rjones said:
Disagree. UA is in the elite. They return to Michigan in September (Ohio just doesn't challenge them) and will play with the top teams at Birmingham. The Bears are the dominant Ohio team!
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Hey ralph...someone forgot to tell Sycamore about the Bear's dominance. It's looking like UA just may make the top 3...in the South. Not sure they make the top 5 statewide.
 
Ohio Cup

So, the Ohio Cup is this week end. All the Ohio teams will be there. Should give us an idea of who to expect at the state tournament in October. In recent years, when an Ohio team has won, they have also won the state tournament. Who do people like for the championship? AA Huron is here for the first time in 4 or 5 years. Assuming they send their best team, based on the Early Bird results, they have to be installed as the favorite. If they win that will be their first Ohio Cup title. Chicago Park is back. They have had mixed results at the Ohio Cup having won it their first trip in 2010 with a dominating performance. They could be very good again. Thomas, St. Charles, UA, Sycamore, St. X and StF all are capable of winning if they get hot. Looking at the group play it looks like Thomas has the weakest group and thus, the easiest route to bracket play on Sunday. UA looks safe to move on to the brackets regardless of how strong the Chicago team is. SC & StF also should make it out of their group. The strongest group appears to be Group C with St.X, Huron & Sycamore meaning one of those 3 will be left out. But that's just on paper. And again the Cup organizers have a JV tournament. Is it still called the Worthington Cup? Back again are teams from Dayton Oakwood and Pittsburgh. Dayton Carroll has a team for the first time. Isn't it great to see these Dayton teams developing. It would be nice to see similar growth in the Northeast. St.X, SC, and St.F will each field 2 JV squads, meaning that they must have impressive numbers of younger players. Anyway, the weather should be perfect so head to Thomas Worthington for a week end of competitive water polo. Good luck to all the teams.
 
thedutchman said:
So, the Ohio Cup is this week end. All the Ohio teams will be there. Should give us an idea of who to expect at the state tournament in October. In recent years, when an Ohio team has won, they have also won the state tournament. Who do people like for the championship? AA Huron is here for the first time in 4 or 5 years. Assuming they send their best team, based on the Early Bird results, they have to be installed as the favorite. If they win that will be their first Ohio Cup title. Chicago Park is back. They have had mixed results at the Ohio Cup having won it their first trip in 2010 with a dominating performance. They could be very good again. Thomas, St. Charles, UA, Sycamore, St. X and StF all are capable of winning if they get hot. Looking at the group play it looks like Thomas has the weakest group and thus, the easiest route to bracket play on Sunday. UA looks safe to move on to the brackets regardless of how strong the Chicago team is. SC & StF also should make it out of their group. The strongest group appears to be Group C with St.X, Huron & Sycamore meaning one of those 3 will be left out. But that's just on paper. And again the Cup organizers have a JV tournament. Is it still called the Worthington Cup? Back again are teams from Dayton Oakwood and Pittsburgh. Dayton Carroll has a team for the first time. Isn't it great to see these Dayton teams developing. It would be nice to see similar growth in the Northeast. St.X, SC, and St.F will each field 2 JV squads, meaning that they must have impressive numbers of younger players. Anyway, the weather should be perfect so head to Thomas Worthington for a week end of competitive water polo. Good luck to all the teams.
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Loving the growth of non-ohio teams at the tournament. seeing huron and cpd for the varsity side is great. also seeing pitt returning is great too.

would really like more tournaments with higher diversity.
 
Huron 16 Mason 6 for Championship
Sycamore 11 Thomas 10 for 3rd

Oakwood 12 St. Francis JV 6 for JV Championship
SC JV 8 UA JV 5 for 3rd
 
looks to be a 5-7 team race in ohio this year (not sure there are any great teams, but a lot of parity), mason sent out a tweet that might have been a bit premature:

Midway thru the 2013 Ohio Water Polo season, and with Huron taking first, Mason is the top team in Ohio, 14-2 vs Ohio teams 14-3 overall

They lost by 7 to Sycamore last night, in no order any of these teams can win it:
sc, syc, mason, ua, tw
and maybe even x or sf on a given day
 
Well, the Regionals are right around the corner. There have been some recent tournaments as all seem to be getting ready for the state tournament. Who do you think will come out of the South and the North?

My choices are Upper, St. X, and Mason coming out of the South and St. F, Thomas, and St. Charles in the North.
 
I heard mason lost their second best player for the year, anyone else know about that? Pretty crushing for them if true.
 
buckeyedr said:
My choices are Upper, St. X, and Mason coming out of the South and St. F, Thomas, and St. Charles in the North.
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Agree with the North. In the South it looks like 4 teams fighting for 3 spots. Along with UA, X, and Mason I think you have to include Sycamore. That said it looks wide open this year and someone could get hot and surprise the favorites. Looking onto the State, I like whoever comes out number 1 in the North. As I'm understanding the structure, the number 1 seeds will play only 2 games to win while the rest will have to play 3. This year that looks to be a sizable advantage as it doesn't look like anyone is going to dominate like UA did last year. Looking forward to competitive regionals and state week ends. Good luck to all.
 
buckeyedr said:
Well, the Regionals are right around the corner. There have been some recent tournaments as all seem to be getting ready for the state tournament. Who do you think will come out of the South and the North?

My choices are Upper, St. X, and Mason coming out of the South and St. F, Thomas, and St. Charles in the North.
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Sure wish my football picks were this good!!! Well, it is going to be an exciting weekend in Mason. Any of these 6 teams could win it all. I really have no clue as to who to pick with so many variables-6 teams instead of 4, large deep pool, and as always who is officiating!!!! Good luck to all!!!
 
Columbus dominance

Despite the fact that Cincinnati claims to be the center of water polo in the state, Columbus teams continue to win the state championship year after year (5 years running) and put out quality college water polo players. Congratulations to St Charles (3rd in 4 years). Will this trend continue or has St X begun its ascent to the top like they have been in swimming? Comments:
 
scwat said:
Congratulations to St Charles (3rd in 4 years). Will this trend continue or has St X begun its ascent to the top like they have been in swimming? Comments:
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Congrats to Geoff Gear and the St. C boys, a testament to Geoff's championship coaching mentality. St. X's rise has been phenominal, proves that good swimming can go a long way!
 
preeder, you go a little further back then the last 5, it is the last 26 of 28 have been outside of cincy and 10 of 12 have been from cbus, the girls side is much the same, with ua, tw and sc rolling it could easily stay like this if a veteran mason team doesnt make a run next year or maybe x is cincys best chance of breaking through
 
scwat said:
Despite the fact that Cincinnati claims to be the center of water polo in the state, Columbus teams continue to win the state championship year after year (5 years running) and put out quality college water polo players. Congratulations to St Charles (3rd in 4 years). Will this trend continue or has St X begun its ascent to the top like they have been in swimming? Comments:
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Not sure where we claim to be the center of water polo - but we are putting forth a lot of effort to grow the sport.

This year, after the most successful club season we had in Cincinnati, 3 of the 4 teams in the state finals from Cincinnati - and all had club athletes on them - and all teams from Cincinnati in the title games had JO athletes on them too. Especially on the girls side - 1st time we have an all-Cincy finals in a LONG time, and both teams were fully comprised of club players and JO players. Will that always happen? Probably not, but it is definitely a great start!

Does 1 year mean we're on top? Not at all. But we're making a lot of efforts to get there for sure.

I think it was really interesting that the top 3 teams on the boys side at states were all private schools too. Will really be curious if there is something to that going forward.

Since 06 Cincy has 2 state titles (boys side 06/08 Milford), and 3 state runners-up (07 Mason, 12 Sycamore, 13 St. X).

Prior to 06 the 1988 Sycamore team was the last state finalist. So the 90's were terrible, but the recent years things have really started to change.

Will be fun to see where the next 10 years goes in terms of this. We have spalsh ball going on for the young ones here (Are there other cities doing splashball? Legitimately don't know the answer to that), we also have a 5-8th grade Moose program going. We may have been behind the rest of the state for a long time in terms of titles, but we're changing the culture in this area in terms of how we develop and the opportunities which we offer.

What's also really good to see is the numbers getting involved in the sport too. In the 4 years that we have had the Moose program our numbers have gone from 30 (4 schools) / 30 (4 schools) / 70 (8 schools) / 100+ (9 schools)

That means were getting more and more non-polo playing schools to have kids playing polo...this will only help the sport grow.

Quantity is there. Quality is there. Now we just have to be consistent with development. Really looking forward to how this plays out over the next several years.
 
You have to wonder if this year's finals is a taste of things to come. Both SC & X have the largest rosters on the boys side. As in any sport large numbers will contribute to the success. When X started their team you knew they would be competitive. But did anyone think it would happen this quickly? Winning their Regional and reaching the finals in only their 3rd year of existence is impressive. Congratulations to all who competed this week end.
 
Nice post mukisa. I agree that no one down there has claimed that Cincinnati is the center of the water polo world, but it certainly is the hotbed in Ohio recently. The efforts in the area especially by Moose are impressive. And that is where the growth is happening. I would assume that the Dayton schools who are fielding teams resulted from the club efforts in the area. Likewise, the StX program is in place because of the club efforts. And don't discount the impact of the top swimming program in Ohio adding water polo. Keep up the good work! Championships are not the measuring stick of success, growth is...and that's what is happing in Cincinnati. We need a little more of it in other parts of Ohio.
 
thedutchman said:
Well done! Great to see success at the club level. It would seem that Cincinnati is or has become the center of water polo in Ohio.
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I' m not sure where the center of Ohio water polo is, but was pointing out that the state championships are all in Cbus in recent memory. My feeling is that the sport is growing in some pockets in numbers, but not sure all the schools have the coaching to pull off a title. Splash ball isn't going to help that.
 
scwat said:
I' m not sure where the center of Ohio water polo is, but was pointing out that the state championships are all in Cbus in recent memory. My feeling is that the sport is growing in some pockets in numbers, but not sure all the schools have the coaching to pull off a title. Splash ball isn't going to help that.
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Splashball won't make or break a program. But it does get a great start to polo. Gets little kids excited about polo. And who knows - in 10 years some of those kids might be high school seniors together. And they will be 10 years seasoned in polo - which would definitely make a program.

Yes - coaching growth needs to occur too.

Columbus has the titles. But up until 06 - it was only cbus and STF. Now you have to look at Cincinnati. That's a major step forward.
 
swimfan said:
Championships are not the measuring stick of success, growth is...and that's what is happing in Cincinnati. We need a little more of it in other parts of Ohio.
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I guess to me there does seem to be an air of self-promotion in Cincy water polo that lacks anything substantive behind it. I would respectfully disagree that championships are not a measuring stick for success. That's like saying the team with more players wins, not more points.

I can get a hundred kids to kick a soccer ball around. I can even put them in a van and take them to California to kick it around. It doesn't mean any of them know how to play soccer. Again, not trying to be disrespectful, but the 06 and 08 Milford championships were in large part due to one kid, who happened to be 6 10 and 300 pounds.

Maybe I am missing something, but despite the larger numbers, since those Milford championships, I don't see improvement in individual or team skills from any of the Cincy teams. If anything, they have declined in the last few years. That to me can only be attributed to a lack of instruction. Again, there is no reason to criticize poor coaching if nobody cares, but if so many people want to talk about how great Cincinnati is doing, maybe they should win something before they do it.
 
Not sure your assessment of the coaching quality is fair scwat. After all 3 of the 4 teams in the championship games were Cincinnati teams. A Cincinnati team did win the girls title. While it is true that Milford seems to have back tracked, that may be a result of coaching changes. Notice that Sycamore (where the Milford coaches are now) seems to be moving up.
 
scwat said:
Columbus teams continue to win the state championship year after year (5 years running) and put out quality college water polo players. Comments:
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No arguing with the state championships in Columbus, but I have to argue with putting out quality college water polo players. Last I checked, the only players to come out of Ohio who play with LEGITIMATE WINNING college water polo teams are the Matulis boys (from Milford in Cincy) at Long Beach and Mercyhurst, and Cogan (from SC in Columbus) at CMS. To say only Columbus puts out quality college water polo players is a complete fallacy, especially since the numbers for Cincy are greater than Columbus.
 
None of my comments pertain to girls water polo since I don't follow it. My comments concerning championships and college players were made because one is a measure of team's performance within the state and the other is an indication that a player can go on to play at the next level. I did not use the criteria that the college has to be a winning team or even a varsity team. I think that it is unrealistic to expect an Ohio player to play for Long Beach or UCLA.

I am aware though of several Cbus players who have had success in the last five years, some from UA including a couple state champion swimmers that played polo at OSU, several from SC (Swanson, Herath, Coppel, Cogan, DeAngelo) at various schools and at least one from Thomas (Wolfe).

The Matulis brothers are examples of good players from Cincinnati, one being probably the best player to come out of Ohio, but they played club polo in Michigan, so that should be considered.

I am not against Cincinnati polo. My main point is that from reading some of the forums that there is a whole lot of promotion going on and it seems excessive given the level of the play that has been achieved to date. I may be proven wrong and the swell of interest in Cincy described over and over on this and other forums may lead to teams so large in Cincinnati that great players will surface.

Personally, I think it is more likely that teams with more focus on coaching and less on advertising will continue to win. Case in point, SC JV teams probably haven't lost five games in five years. There has been little discussion of this, but I would ask why kids who have never played the sport never lose to other kids who have never played the sport? Could it be what they are taught and how they practice? Think about it.
 
This conversation is inane! Who cares who has the best coach, the most state championships, or alums playing in college except for a high school sophomore or perhaps his dad? Who cares if the Cincinnati area promotes their water polo development programs? I think the fact they are doing something to encourage participation in the sport we all love is fantastic. What this sport needs, in Ohio, is more teams and it is going to take the kind of effort being put forth by the Moose program. Face it, we have about 15 teams or so in the whole state and the sport isn't even sacntioned by the OHSAA. Geoff Gear and Maura Dickinson have been running camps for middle schoolers and splashball programs for the little kids for a few years now as well. This is the kind of work it will take to elevate the level of play in Ohio high school water polo down the road. Give it a rest Scwat, come up with something constructive rather than something that makes you feel good about yourself or your son.
 
On a very related side note to all of this.

USAWP sent out Jack Kocur (former Pepperdine coach, and current asst. on mens national team) to run a coaches clinic the Saturday of the state championships.

There were roughly 15 coaches and some officials and even a current h.s. athlete on hand for it. He went over the ODP coaches manual, and then worked with us in terms of organizing Ohio for growth as a whole. Was it an end-all be-all type clinic? Not at all. But it's definitely a positive experience on which we can all build.

I think every coach that went found it to be very worthwhile, and while I don't think there was anything earth shattering there - I think that we had so many coaches from all over the state attending (with what seems to be the same mind set) - I think the direction of Ohio WP is going the right way.

I think you will see a couple more club situations pop up - in other areas. I think Moose will continue to grow and evolve into what we're hoping to see it become.

It's really good to see so many coaches seeking to be on the same page with each other, and want to grow the sport for the betterment of the sport.

Thanks opus for your response. I did not know those 2 did the splashball stuff - but how great is it that in the 2 of the 3 major areas of polo in Ohio there are those opportunities to start at a young age. Just think, from a business standpoint - how lucrative Cleveland could be...you could be the only show in town. Start a club, and just watch the numbers boom.

Will be fun to see if we can truly build the middle school program to be something more than just some camps and stuff - but more into a program that can send teams to tournaments and get real competition on a regular basis. I mean, we're getting in a couple games a year for that group now, but I'm talking multiple tournaments with several games at each through out the year. Pool time is an issue, but there are ways to work around / within the system we have.

Press fast forward and visualize where we are in 10 years.

The quality of the high school play should be markedly higher, because there is a middle school program - and the quality there should be pretty decent because there is a splashball type program to feed into it. Which could lead into more teams because there are more athletes, which could lead into more colleges coming to Ohio to recruit legitimate athletes for their college programs. Which....well, you get the idea.

I know I'm excited about it.
 
Yes, Opus, you may be right. I may be the only one on here annoyed by the kind of promotion I brought up in earlier posts. I also get annoyed in youth swimming when coaches put young kids in races who don't know the legal stroke and yet, I watch everyone else cheer for that. I don't have a son in swimming or polo so that was not my angle. I simply made a point and responded specifically to those who addressed my posts. I agree with you that constructive criticism is generally better. I guess we will see in ten years where things go from here.
 
Anyone have any thoughts on the All Ohio teams? Curious to see how that compares to the all regional and all tournament teams.
 
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