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Memorial Cup Notes; PA, OH, MD Championships; MPSF Turmoil
A huge day in American water polo. TWp monitored events from Bellarmine Prep in San Jose at the championship round of the Memorial Cup, the classic NorCal-SoCal boys high school battle. Observations from the pool deck and beyond: Two of the historic American boys high school teams met for the
Notes and Brackets from Northern California’s Memorial Cup Tournament
Bellarmine Prep and Serra High School host the Memorial Cup in Northern California this weekend. Some notes from day one of the event: Sacramento’s Rio Americano was forced to abandon its second match on Friday with the score tied 10-10 against tournament co-host Serra. Coach Tyson Frenn received a red
Texas State High School Championships in Austin
An old friend and teammate from California’s Bay Area who’s lived in Dallas for nearly a decade sat next to us for the final day of Texas’ high school championships in Austin the past Saturday. “I had no idea this many teams played water polo in Texas” he commented upon observing that
Notes from the North/South Tournament
A tumultuous weekend of California boys water polo is ended, including a bit of revenge for Mater Dei, which topped El Toro by one goal to win the North-South Tournament Championship in Atherton. And while the final match was merely decent, the level of play throughout the tournament, overall, was
Notes from the Finis Memorial Cup 2009
Some disorganized thoughts and observations from what I saw of the 2009 Finis Memorial Cup: St. Mary’s: there has been an enormous amount of chatter about how physical (dirty?) St. Mary’s plays. Some online commentators suggested that the team would be banned from further competition because of it. One person
North-South Challenge – Notes on Day 1
Sacred Heart Prep played host to the early games of the North-South Challenge yesterday. I got to see most of them. So here are my quick, random thoughts and observations. Mater Dei is the class of the tournament so far. Even against a very strong Dos Pueblos team the outcome
USA v. Hungary
An improbable, inspirational, and nearly magical tournament is over. The US was overmatched and overwhelmed despite remaining within four goals of the winner of three consecutive Olympic gold medals. Karma, mojo, whatever you want to call it, ran out in crashing fashion. Merrill Moses had his worst game of the
USA v. Serbia
[Terry Schroeder] recalled how in 1988 Russia “threw” a match to face the United States in the semifinals, rather than Yugoslavia. The ploy motivated the Americans to knock out Russia. “If Serbia gets that far, we’ll be ready for them,” he said.* They were ready. Merrill Moses led the US,
USA v. Germany
A historic win for the Yanks, not so much for the quality of the win over Germany (a team with glaring weaknesses, not including its superb goalkeeping) but for the team’s ability to finish an important game. The US was opportunistic on offense, and played markedly better than in every
