AquaTexans Earn Bronze at WTTS
The Welcome to Texas Shootout ended with big success for AquaTex athletes and the Longhorn teams for which they played. Our 14u mixed and 18u boys (coed) teams each finished third with wins over Mavericks, Viper Pigeon and CFWPC, and very close losses to Thunder and Pegasus, some of our best results ever. Read all the scores here.
Aaron, Declan, and Kendall all were big contributors to the 18u success, including an in-your-face moment when Aaron put away his penalty shot after an opposing coach let him and everyone in the facility know he wasn’t going to succeed (no vertical lunges for Aaron!). Both Kendall and Declan showed that they could play up against these talented opponents and – most importantly? – displayed some serious defensive skills (#proudcoach). Oh, and Aaron also anchored the 14u team because he felt it was important to play eight games instead of four.
Needless to say, it was a great weekend for our athletes and their Longhorn friends, most of whom were on our Junior Olympics rosters. Congratulations to all of them, and a huge shout out to parents who went to support their efforts.
12u/14u Scrimmage on Sunday
Longhorn will be bringing the crew to Micki this Sunday the 12th for a local game day scrimmage. The pool will open at 8:30 for warmup followed by an hour or more of scrimmaging for our youngest athletes (Swim2Score will scrimmage separately). This is a chance for all our newcomers to hop in, cap up, and play in a competitive setting maybe for the first time. It is most definitely a chance to learn so all AQTX middle schoolers are expected to attend. And we’ll try to break out the clocks I bought right as the pandemic was beginning, so high schoolers can show up and run them.
High school practice will still begin at 10:00 AM and will also likely include a lot of controlled scrimmaging.
Finally, we invite our Swim2Score athletes and anyone 11 and under from Longhorn to play some splashball beginning at 10:30 or so, after a short warmup.
Parent Meeting
Now that summer is over it’s time for parents and coaches to convene. We will meet via Zoom on Tuesday, September 14 at 7:00 PM. Families will be sent a link or two (in case we go over 40 minutes) to the conference in the coming days.
We will cover issues such as the fall schedule, which tournaments we are focusing on attending, our partnership with Longhorn, plans for growth, getting to know our coaches, and more about the culture we’re trying to build with AquaTex Waterpolo. If you have any subjects you think should be covered let me know as soon as possible, and be on the look out for that email invitation to Zoom. It’s an important time for our club so the maximum possible attendance is appreciated, whether new to the club or not.
Fall Schedule
Tournaments
Take a moment to look at our Calendar and select only “USA Water Polo – Southwest Water Polo.” You’ll see the tournament schedule for the next few months. After a discussion with Longhorn we plan to enter teams at the Viper Pigeon Octopolofest, Texas Challenge Cup, and the Cowtown tournament traditionally held in December (not yet on the USAWP calendar). AQTX families will be getting a link to an updated commitment spreadsheet so we can plan our travel rosters. We urge our families to set aside time for these important events as we attempt to increase the amount and quality of competition in which we participate.
Olympic Development Program
And we strongly encourage our athletes to participate in USA Water Polo’s Olympic Development Program. The first camp is at UT on Sunday, September 19 and you can register here via your (new) USAWP profile. Newcomers can consult this for more information about the program, or contact AquaTex families that have participated in past years. And even though I stepped down as head coach I am still involved with the program and can answer a lot of questions. It’s a great way to accelerate your learning of the game and potentially travel with teams of fellow Texans to compete against others from throughout the US.
Practice Cancellations
Consult the calendar as we make changes to adapt to swim meets and other stuff at Micki, and follow us on social media as we increase the amount of info we share that way. And if you don’t know our GroupMe link let me know so we can add you.
All practices are cancelled the weekend of September 25-26 due to an age-group swim meet. We may have a game day at UT on Sunday the 26th.
Welcome!
We’re very pleased to welcome a new 12u athlete, Rudy, to the club. He joins Siri and Gavin (14u), who had some great trial practices and we hope they’ll join us permanently. For them an any other family new to our program, several of the questions you may have about what comes next are here. Welcome to all of you.
Good Luck, Coach Matthew
Coach Matt has been missing recently for a good reason. He’s back home in the Chicago-land area and will be competing in Madison at the Ironman Wisconsin on Sunday, the 12th. We wish him the best of luck, hope he wins, and then rushes back to Austin. Have a great time, and #BeYourBest Smiley!
See you on the deck,
James
