Water Polo 2015

First week end of high school water polo is almost here. What are the predictions? Saw that preseason poll has St. Charles at the top. As defending champion they are logically the team to beat. St. X is ranked second with UA third. I believe UA & SC are in Ann Arbor this weekend for the Early Bird. Michigan powerhouse Rockford is there as well. Will be interesting to see how UA & SC do. Hopefully they'll not play each other but be matched with Michigan teams. I thing StF is there as well. Meanwhile Napoleon has its annual tournament. I assume that will attract most of the Ohio teams. Good luck to all. Looking forward to an exciting season.
 
 
Looking forward to Early Bird as 4 of the top 8 finishers in last year's Michigan state tournament will be there. Rockford (1), Pioneer (3), Huron (4), & Skyline (7) all are at the tournament. Other Michigan teams include Saline, Dexter, Groves & Seaholm who all made it to the regional last year. Also Sycamore will be there from Ohio. This should give us some idea of the Ohio teams expectations this year. SC should be strong - they have alot back but must replace their goalie who was outstanding last year. UA should be much improved as they were quite young last year and they had a couple of players playing in California this summer. Look for improvement there. As I recall Sycamore was pretty young last year. StF always seems to start slow. Anyway, good luck to all, would love to see all the Ohio teams do really well this weekend.
 
According to what I saw on twitter, it appears that SC & UA are sending their varsity teams to Ann Arbor and their JV squads to Napoleon. Based on the numbers from the past years its not surprising that SC can split their squad. They did it a number of times last year. UA's numbers must be up if they can field a separate JV team. Seems like in the past UA had to supplement their JV team with some of their secondary varsity players. Two separate squads would indicate that deBear is attracting more players and has the program moving forward. Maybe this is the year for them to return to the top. It looks like X may have 2 JV squads this year. Their sending both to Napoleon but the varsity is staying home. Looking at X's varsity schedule they'll be well traveled. They go to Michigan a couple of times, are in the Beast of the East again, and have a weekend trip to Atlanta. I'm not sure how strong high school water polo is down there.
 
You can count on the Bears in Michigan to make a good accounting of themselves. You're right that their much improved and will move up in the rankings now that the season has started. The JV Bears gave a strong accounting of themselves against Napoleon's varsity although the Cats squeaked it out in the end. Milford's next tonight, expect the JV Bears to give them a battle. Tomorrow the JV play the Xs teams. Should be 2 victories. Meanwhile the varsity plays Groves tonight.
 
Bears go 3 & 1 in Ann Arbor, only losing in a hard fought final to Rockford. UA played most of second half without number one goalie who got hurt. By far best showing of the Ohio teams. Bears should move up in the rankings.
 
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