Game Day

CenTex Consolidated: 2023 TISCA State Championship

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From the Hosts

The TISCA Water Polo Fall Champs (Non UIL Teams) will be on Saturday, October 14th at the Garland ISD Natatorium in North Texas. The event will be hosted by Garland ISD and Pegasus Water Polo. The eligibility for this event will be non-UIL teams/athletes meaning teams that do not play within the UIL this fall season and athletes who are not playing for any UIL school. The event will be a one day championship event with a Girls Division and a Boys Division (coed teams will play in the Boys Division). Games will be played in two courses running simultaneously and begin Saturday morning and end around 7:00 pm on Saturday evening. Games will be 4 x 6:00 minute quarters using NFHS rules. All teams will be guaranteed at least two games. Below is all the tournament info. Team Registration: Team Entry Deadline is Wednesday, October 4th. To register for the event, please email your team entries (be specific on team names/divisions when entering teams) and bring entry fee checks to the pool the weekend of the tournament (check made payable to “Garland ISD”).

TISCA Water Polo – Fall Champs – 2023 (Non UIL Teams):
Date: Saturday, October 14, 2023. Games will be played in two courses running simultaneously and begin on Saturday morning and end around 7:00 pm on Saturday evening.
Location: Garland ISD Natatorium, 2585 Firewheel Pkwy, Garland, TX 75040
Divisions: Girls Division, Boys Division (coed teams will play in the Boys Division).
Eligibility: All athletes need to be in 9th-12th grade. The eligibility for this event will be non-UIL teams/athletes meaning teams that do not play within the UIL this fall season and athletes who are not playing for any UIL school. Consolidated teams are welcome to enter. Athletes must be in good standing academically to participate (no pass, no play).
Entry Fee: $275 per team. Please bring checks made payable to “Garland ISD” to the pool the day of the event.
Format: Games will be 4 x 6:00 minute quarters. All teams will receive at least two games.
Team Registration: Entry Deadline is Wednesday, October 4th. To register for the event, please email your team entries (be specific on team names/divisions when entering teams) and bring entry fee checks to the pool the weekend of the tournament (check made payable to “Garland ISD”).
Roster Deadline: Wednesday, October 11, 2023. Email your team rosters to
Schedule: An online schedule will be sent to everyone on Friday, October 6, 2023.

CenTex Consolidated: Westlake HS Game Day

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Both committed AND tentative athletes.
CapNameGradeSchoolClub
1/14William Lunsford12McNeilAQTX
13/1AJackson (JP) Place9Vista RidgeAQTX
4Cash Brown9Vista RidgeAQTX
7Jacob Gerakos11Lake BeltonAQTX
9Tristan Chamas9VandegriftLH
10Aaron Gordon11VandegriftAQTX
11Ava Chamas11VandegriftLH
12Chase Wadley9East ViewAQTX
15Alexander Savage9VandergriftZilla
16Yuri Alfredo Morales9St. Dominic SavioZilla
17Saar werpoler11Cedar ParkZilla
18Saul JR Gutierrez11LehmanLH
19August Nordstedt12St. Andrew'sLH
13Nethanial Mester10VandegriftNone
14Connor Cox12VandegriftNone
21Remy Lievens9Stony PointAQTX

Zilla has organized a Game Day for consolidated high school teams on Saturday, August 19. These will be coach-refereed games. Here’s the tentative schedule:

Here are my estimated start times. If we don’t have enough girls, maybe we can push all games 20 minutes to allow for morning warm up. Please be sure all kids are registered with USAWP.

9:00am – set up course
9:30am – Central Texas vs. Cedar Park
10:20am – Dallas vs. Houston
11:10am – Central Texas vs. Dallas
12:00pm – Cedar Park vs. Houston
12:50pm – Girls game (if not enough girls, will use this time to catch up if late)
1:40pm – Central Texas vs. Houston
2:30pm – Cedar Park vs. Dallas

Each athlete can expect to pay AquaTex (Coach James) around $80 for three games. It’s possible it will be a lot less than that but it serves as a good estimate.

Longhorn Beach Polo Blitz

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Rosters

AQTX BlueAQTX OrangeAQTX Black (lower)
Jackson PlaceReinhold KarvenzAlan Ni
Chase WadleyColton NealisAshton Benson
Parker NealisWilliam PembertonRyan Benson
Elliot BronshteynIsabelle MorrisonNeel Ramanathan
Rudy-Matheo GarciaDiego Suarez-QuirogaIlay Lev
John KellyAaron BielikClayton Waterbury
Jacob BiceAdrian HerreraRemy Lievens
Ryan Chong

Coaches Alon and Babs will be there and can make adjustments as necessary.

From the Host

Thursday, April 13 from 7-9pm at the Texas Swim Center

Format: Two division Beach Polo Tournament, games to 5, championship games for both divisions.
Four field players and a goalie, short courses (~15 yards), beach polo rules. 6 athlete max per roster. Should have around 6-8 LH and St Stephens teams plus whatever you guys can bring.
Two courses running simultaneously, LH coaches will ref games, each team plays at least three games.
Upper and Lower Divisions. For reference, my better middle school boys and girls will play upper, newer players and 10U kids will play lower.
We can incorporate individual athletes if you don’t have enough for a team or have too many for just one team.

Each athlete must turn in a completed waiver/try out form when checking in at the front desk. USA WP membership a plus but not required.

Parking- Koe Wetzel (?) concert at the Moody Inconvenience Center same night. Closest reliable free parking is probably the Bob Bullock/IMAX parking garage on1800 Congress Ave., Austin, TX 78701

Admissions-Parents/spectators welcome, no charge for admissions.

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New Year Sale, Scrimmage Day, Roster Calls, Parent Meeting

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Here’s wishing all our families, athletes, coaches, and supporters a prosperous 2023. We’ve been dormant for only a couple weeks but it seems like a lifetime so we’re excited to resume activities in the coming days.

Training Update

We return in full force on Saturday, January 7, 10:00 AM. Then on Sunday the 8th we’ll host a controlled scrimmage day with Longhorn. The schedule will resemble our game days but we will be a bit flexible. Controlled scrimmage means that coaches will manage the scrimmage with specific goals in mind and likely have an agenda (press vs. Zone defense and 6 on 5 come to mind).

Updated, 2 January 2023

  • 9:00-10:00ish AM, Age Group (12u/14u) Coed scrimmage
  • 10:00-11:00ish AM High School scrimmage
  • 11:00-noonish, Masters

Roster Call(s)

We’re not attending the Cowtown Stampede the weekend of January 7-8 but there’s the Dare to Dream tournament, which takes place on January 28-29, already on our calendar. This tournament is geared entirely toward 12u and 10u athletes. So we want as many of our Novices and Swim2Score athletes taking part. And this season it is being held at Texas A&M.

Also, I have good info that there should be a one-day event in San Antonio for all ages before the end of January. Stay tuned.

Gear: New Year Sale!

To say thanks for your support of the club and to boost our gear wearage (?) we’re having a sale! Use the coupon code NYear23 for a 23% discount on any purchase of Printful gear from the AquaTex Waterpolo Shop. The discount does not apply to RYTE suits. The sale ends on January 16 so order soon.

Finances

I’m way behind on tournament finances (someone kindly gave me a kick in the pants about it.) I’ll have specific charges for families who still owe me for participating at one of the three tournaments below soon. But if you notice via your Venmo records that you haven’t paid me for any or all of these, feel free! My Venmo handle is @sadhuminstrels. And for those who may be newer to our program, I do pay for tournaments myself (entry fees, coaches’ lodging, fuel per diem), thus the request for Venmo payments to directly reimburse me. Please remember, the charge is per roster, meaning that if your athlete played both 16u and 18u games they owe the fee below times two.

  • Alamo Classic (18u/16u), Nov 5-6, $65
  • TAGS, Nov 19-20, $75
  • Jingle Bells Festival, Dec 17-18, $61

Parent Meeting for JOs

That’s right. The start of 2023 means we have to start planning for JOs. On January 10 at 7:00 PM I’ll be hosting an online meeting where I’ll share our current plans for Junior Olympics in the summer of 2023 and ask for you feedback about expectations. The biggest question for each team: do we want to qualify to go to California or do we want to play in North Texas? Our friends from Longhorn will be having a similar discussion and our coaching staffs will coordinate as much as necessary. Look for a link to the meeting via GroupMe as that date approaches.

International AquaTex

Given the very serious and fantastic international flavor of our club we’re making a multi-lingual tee-shirt on which we’ll print “waterpolo” in as many languages that are spoken within our families. That includes, but is not at all limited to: Spanish, Italian, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian, Swedish, Nepali, Hindi, Cantonese, Vietnamese, French, English… Surely there are more so please contact me if your family actively speaks a language at home that’s missing from this list.

Happy New Year.

PartitaPartenza2022

Jingle Bells and End of Season Update

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There are several things to cover as we head toward the much slower final two weeks of the calendar year and to the holidays. So let’s get in to it.

Ciao

It was a good day of games on Sunday with our friends from Longhorn, and a bittersweet Partenza Partita for our Italian exchange student, Stefano. Thanks to all of you for attending, supporting all our athletes, bringing food and drinks, and overall being great AquaTex parents. We plan on doing similar days when the tournament schedule is a little slower.

Speaking of tournaments…

Jingle Bells Festival

The Jingle Bells Festival schedule is out and rosters are final. Coach Smiley will be coaching all three teams (14u, 16u, 18u mixed) with the help of Longhorn coaches Tom, Steve, Molly, and Magaly. There are three AquaTex teams and four Longhorn teams playing at the tournament, which presented us with a challenge since our coaches are largely occupied that weekend. So our thanks to Coach Smiley for taking the lead, and Coach Tom for stepping up to help us.

As usual, families, plan on meeting coach Matt one hour before your first game of the day. After the first game it is the coaches’ decision about when to meet next. And don’t be surprised if you’re coached by one of the Longhorns! It’s gonna be a busy weekend.

Cowtown Stampede

It’s back on the calendar on a less-than-optimal weekend, January 7-8. We will take the lead on sending teams up to the LISD East Side Aquatic Center in The Colony. Longhorn will not be organizing any teams, so their athletes will play for AquaTex. The event is now live on TeamUnify so if you are interested in playing, commit as soon as possible. All age groups are open so plenty of chances to play.

End of Year

This week is the final one of the year with a normal practice schedule, including Thursday girls’ training. On Saturday we will have normal 10 AM practice (more of a shoot-around really) and Swim2Score. But we’ll cancel Sunday practice and then we’ll be dormant until the new year.

By dormant we mean that it is our coaches discretion to have some in-water shooting sessions and games or not! So keep an eye open in GroupMe for an ad hoc, fun training schedule, especially on the weekends.

Thank You

My heartfelt thanks to all our families for making this the biggest, most successful year in AquaTex Waterpolo’s history. Yes, we plan on more in 2023 but it’s important to reflect on the growth we’ve encountered this year, based on your trust in us to help your athletes get better. Thank you for that and we can’t wait for the new year.

And a particular note of thanks to our tremendous coaches. We added Babs and Matt this season, which has been an enormous help to our program. They, Smiley, Kendall, and Alon have committed many hours of their time sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm for this crazy European sport with your athletes. For that I’m enormously grateful. Thank you, Coaches! And don’t be surprised if that roster of coaches grows in 2023.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year to everyone.

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l’anno sta finendo, il torneo finale e l’addio

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Closing Out 2022

An overdue update after my return from the UK and hopefully a recovery from a respiratory thing (man, does that linger).

We end 2022 with our largest number of athletes ever, new training opportunities for our girls, more great coaches, and more competition for our athletes. We are now at a point where we have to decide about such things as separating high school training from Age Group, a great problem to have. But stay tuned as we consider changes.

Roster Call

It’s our final tournament of the season, the Jingle Bells Festival at Cy-Fair Natatorium in North Houston. As of today we are entering 14u mixed, 16u boys, 18u boys. For 18u boys we need 2 more athletes to make me comfortable (a couple players can only attend on Saturday). We’re still very short on the numbers of 18u girls we would need to enter that team, which we want to do.

Coach Smiley will be the head coach for all the teams we send to this tournament and will be assisted by Tom Andrew and/or Evan Sayer of Longhorn. If there are any conflicts between teams at the tournament we’ll definitely have a coach to cover it.

Partenza Partita!

Our friend Stefano is returning to Italy as his (blazing fast) semester in Round Rock comes to an end. So we’ll combine a game day with his departure, which will not include any Central Texas version of Italian food (sorry Niki’s) but a small smorgasbord of local delights such as Round Rock Doughnuts, Arandinas breakfast tacos, and whatever you suggest! We’re looking for ideas and/or goodies you could bring to celebrate the end of the year and as a farewell to our amico italiano.

Let’s have some grub ready for all the kiddos as they finish their games. Perhaps a volunteer or two to supervise a goodies table?

The game day schedule looks like this

The tentative schedule is:

  • 9:00 AM pool open for warmup
  • 9:30 AM 12u Coed Game
  • 10:15 AM 14u Coed Game (High School girls should expect to play at this time)
  • 11:00 High School Game
  • noon Masters Game

Girls’ Training

We’ve started our Thursday evening girls-only training sessions. Coach Babs is taking the lead but other AquaTex coaches will be there too or in her place when she can’t make it (she has a career!). Age group girls are encouraged to attend as well, not just high schoolers. We will take time to do chalk talks on Thursdays so all athletes are expected to take notes during meetings (no handouts) so have a notepad ready to go.

About TeamUnify

We have several families new to the program so I thought it would be useful to share some info about the tools we use to organize stuff, including communications. It’s a bit long winded but in the spirit of keeping our families informed about how club administration works I thought it would be useful.

First, AquaTex Waterpolo is most definitely part of AquaTex Swim Team. Without the support of club owner Mark Parshall there would be no autonomous water polo club at Micki Krebsbach pool.

Coach Mark several years ago began using the online swim team management tool, TeamUnify (also called SportsEngine). TeamUnify is, in my opinion, very good at only one thing: finances. It is apparently pretty good at registering athletes for swim meets, but that’s a very different process than organizing water polo events. But, most importantly, it is the tool Coach Mark has chosen. So all AquaTex families are required to register via TeamUnify in order to be considered a member of the team.

I have avoided using TeamUnify in past years for admin and comms because I find it very clumsy and not super waterpolo friendly. Plus, I do not have access to all the tools that Mark has: I cannot update your profile, change your membership status, or charge you. Only Mark can, and he’s a busy guy.

But I do have access to its communications tools and as our club has grown I’ve found it easier to communicate with everyone using it. So we recently began asking asking all our families to use TeamUnify more actively. Given all that, a few things for our families in no particular order.

  • My communications via TeamUnify will only go to active members. That is, if your account is suspended or not yet active you won’t get many or any emails from me. And email is my primary means of communications. There are perfectly good reasons why families suspend accounts temporarily but just know that it’ll limit any communications from the club.
  • My emails will go only to the addresses you’ve added to your profile. So, for example, if you register using only your athlete’s email address (strongly discourage anyone from doing that) and have not added your own as “Alternate” emails then you won’t get emails from me. So please go in to your account and make sure the email addresses you’ve entered are ones that a parent or guardian will receive and are validated.
  • On that note, your TeamUnify account is a family account to be set up by an adult (typically but not always a parent). To your account you can add any number of “members,” AKA athletes. So there is a difference between your “account,” which is meant to be managed by an adult, and your “members,” which include all the members of your clan including yourself if, say, you are a masters swimmer. (I plan on drawing up specific instructions for registering with TeamUnify to explain all that).
  • For those who have not registered yet, there are many swim team groups for which you can sign up. For water polo ignore all of them except: Swim2Score, Novice Waterpolo, Waterpolo, Masters Waterpolo. Do not sign up for “Middle School” or “High School.” Those are swim team groups.
  • When logging on to your account do not try to go via the SportsEngine site. Go to the AquaTex Swim Team home page and click on “Sign In” at the top. Several families are or have been members of other teams that use TeamUnify. But your accounts do not transfer between clubs. So log on directly via the AquaTex Swim Team site.

This site I built to make up for the many shortcomings of TeamUnify. But it is almost entirely meant to share information and news about the club. There is very little if any admin taking place on AquaTexWaterpolo.com. So, again, we appreciate you getting accustomed to using TeamUnify more often.

 

Partenza Partita! 2022 AQTX/Longhorn December Game Day

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Copied from our October Game Day, except that this one is a farewell to Stefano who will be returning to Italy in a couple weeks and missing out on the Cowtown Stampede. Tentative schedule below.

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A few notes about Sunday’s game day since there have been questions.

  • If you have not signed up for the event using TeamUnify, and you are currently registered with AquaTex, just show up if you want to play. We are trying to get everyone accustomed to using TeamUnify to indicate their commitment to events but there’s some wiggle room for our game day
  • The start times are tentative though we are going to try to stick to them within reason. It is possible, for example, that we’ll combine 12u and 14u in to one game depending on our numbers
  • High school athletes:
    • come early to run the clocks, which we will do for each game (6 minute quarters)
    • those currently registered (not suspended) with AquaTex or Longhorn can participate
  • Games will be refereed by coaches
  • The game day takes the place of practice in case you wondered. There will be no training on Sunday, just games.

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AquaTex members, indicate your intent to play via your TeamUnify portal.

We’ll be hosting a game day with our friends from Longhorn including high school and age group athletes (we hope to have enough for a 10u game as well).

We will attempt to create games with AquaTex vs. Longhorn but will adjust as necessary depending on the turnout.

The tentative schedule is:

9:00 AM pool open for warmup

9:30 AM 12u Coed Game

10:15 AM 14u Coed Game (High School girls should expect to play at this time)

11:00 High School Game

noon Masters Game

Masters athletes who are not AquaTex members will pay the usual $10 walk-in fee.

2022 AQTX/Longhorn October Game Day

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A few notes about Sunday’s game day since there have been questions.

  • If you have not signed up for the event using TeamUnify, and you are currently registered with AquaTex, just show up if you want to play. We are trying to get everyone accustomed to using TeamUnify to indicate their commitment to events but there’s some wiggle room for our game day
  • The start times are tentative though we are going to try to stick to them within reason. It is possible, for example, that we’ll combine 12u and 14u in to one game depending on our numbers
  • High school athletes:
    • come early to run the clocks, which we will do for each game (6 minute quarters)
    • those currently registered (not suspended) with AquaTex or Longhorn can participate
  • Games will be refereed by coaches
  • The game day takes the place of practice in case you wondered. There will be no training on Sunday, just games.

***

AquaTex members, indicate your intent to play via your TeamUnify portal.

We’ll be hosting a game day with our friends from Longhorn including high school and age group athletes (we hope to have enough for a 10u game as well).

We will attempt to create games with AquaTex vs. Longhorn but will adjust as necessary depending on the turnout.

The tentative schedule is:

9:00 AM pool open for warmup

9:30 AM 12u Coed Game

10:15 AM 14u Coed Game

11:00 High School Game

noon Masters Game

Masters athletes who are not AquaTex members will pay the usual $10 walk-in fee.

2022 South Texas Spring Champs

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Schedule/Results

Working Rosters

4th Grade/U (5v5) Only 1 Game6th Grade/U (6v6)6th Grade/U (6v6)8th Grade/U (7v7)
EricLonghorn OrangeLonghorn White (AquaHorns)Laird
ClaireElizaIzzyNick
AviLairdWesPierce
RyanZephyrAaronZeke
GreyJacksonEricLandon
DanClaireCruz
RobertAviFlora
Ryan WMaddox
Grey?Tomas
Ryan W.

The day after West Region High School Championships are complete, Alamo Area Aquatics Association plans to host a Game Day for middle school and younger athletes. It will take place on April 24 at the AHISD Natatorium. Age groups are determined by grade. AquaTex will plan on combining with Longhorn when necessary as we did for the Alamo Classic a few weeks ago.

The event will take place all day Sunday.

Currently, plans are for all 4th grade and under athletes who are interested in playing to be divided up equally among 2-3 teams and will NOT compete for any particular club.

From the Host

There will be two divisions: 8th Grade & Younger Mixed and 6th Grade & younger Mixed. Additionally, we will be playing two exhibition games: 8th Grade & Younger Girls and 4th Grade & Younger Mixed. The 8th grade & Younger Mixed division will be playing first thing in the morning, then the two exhibition games, and finishing with the 6th Grade & Younger Mixed division playing late morning/early afternoon. This event will have a championship format with awards and played in two courses running simultaneously. All teams will be guaranteed two games with the games being back to back or with one game break (no waiting around all day for games).

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Success in San Antonio, Cowtown Approaches

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Alamo Area Aquatics Game Day

The scores are not currently published but we came away from our Game Day in San Antonio with some very good results and a ton of experience for our newest athletes. AquaHorns 18u, 16u, and 14u came away undefeated each with two wins while our 12u (almost Ironman!) team learned a ton in two losses to some big rosters from Zilla and Alamo/AquaSwift. It was a busy day for me, Coach Tom, and all our athletes but the experience was very positive with or without the impressive scores.

Keep an eye open for updated scores on the Game Day event page. You can also find the final rosters on that page. Families of each athlete owes me $35.00 for participating at the event payable via Venmo (@sadhuminstrels). Much appreciated to those who have already done so and thanks for doing so promptly.

Cowtown Stampede

A first draft schedule is out for the Cowtown Stampede, the final tournament of the year for the AquaHorns. It kicks off on Saturday in Keller. All our athletes will be playing for Longhorn EXCEPT 16u athletes, who are playing for AquaTex. For those newer to travel tournaments I suggest you check out our “How does traveling to tournaments work?” response in our team FAQs.

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