TAGS

shieldyJOs

Our Latest Plans for JOs, TAGS, College Recruiting

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AquaTex Waterpolo Families,

Some very good news about JOs to share with everyone, including our friends from Austin. It looks to be a very busy and competitive summer with our most ambitious plans ever for JOs in July. Plus a TAGS roster call and an upcoming Zoom for everyone interested in playing collegiate water polo. Read on.

TAGS

A reminder that we’re planning on combining with Longhorn for 8th/6th/4th grade and younger for the 2021 Texas Age Group Water Polo Championships, April 24-25 in Pearland. There are several Longhorns already signed up. So far Ava, Tristan, and Jacob are committed. If you’re interested in participating contact me.

USA Water Polo 2021 National Junior Olympics

This information will be copied to another page is now available here and will be updated as necessary.

Many of you have noticed that Junior Olympics are now on the national calendar, a great sign that competition is returning to something approaching normal. We’re very pleased to start sharing information with everyone regarding our ambitious plans for 2021 JOs and Southwest Zone Qualifiers.

Dates

  • June 11-13, Southwest Zone Junior Olympics Qualifiers, TBD, TX
  • July 17-20, National Junior Olympics Session 1 (boys), Irvine, CA
  • July 22-25, National Junior Olympics Session 2 (girls), Irvine, CA

Teams

Longhorn and AQTX have begun accounting for all the athletes who are eligible for which teams this summer at JOs. And the news is good. Based on the total number of our players, plus some estimates regarding who is interested in going, we are aiming to field the following teams at JOs and SWZ Quals. The numbers take into account the ages of our athletes as of 8/1/2021. We can enter multiple teams per age group if the numbers of athletes are sufficient. Athletes CAN play up with older age groups as long as they are listed on all relevant team rosters.

Age Group/Gender12u mix18u boys18u girls
Qualification PlansQualify for session 2, NorCalQualify for session 1, NorCalRegister Session 3, Dallas
JO QualsJO QualsSWZ Festival
ClubLonghornLonghornAquaTex
Coaches (?)TomAlon, Kendall
AthletesDaniel ArmendarizAxel HaidtHelen Randle
Laird GreenBilly FlukingerSonia Randle
With TUSawyer JayasuriyaEvan SchafferBridget Guy
Signups 5/9Silas ChamasGavin OrrisCate Sloat
Lennon BeaversGreysen Gaderson
Robert RothManu Singhal
Rudy- Matheo GarciaMatthew GuyMorgan Spooner
Isabelle MorrisonOwen MurphyCorina Nunziata
Perrin MinterFlora Garcia
William PembertonAugust NordstedtIzzy Spencer
Alex CattersonKelly MurphyKendall Strauss
Thomas Woodley
Chase KershnerAmanda Easter
Evan Minter
Peter Wallace

Deadlines

Most dates for the following are still forthcoming.

DateItem
TBDCommitment Deadline: Athletes/parents will need to register online for the event
TBDUSA Water Polo registration, club affiliations, and age verification deadline
Wednesday, May 26 (est.)Commitment deadline for the Southwest Zone Champs (NJO Qualifier)
Fri-Sun, June 11-13Southwest Zone Champs (NJO Qualifier). Location TBD. Boys and girls all age groups.
Monday, June 28 (est.)Deadline to email flight information for athletes/parents
Saturday, July 3 (est.)Final payment due for NJO’s trip costs
Saturday, July 10 (est.)Final rosters, schedules, detailed itinerary, etc. will be emailed

Some Answers to Possible Questions

  • Athletes must compete at Southwest Zone Championships on June 11-13 to be eligible to play at JOs in July.
    • USA Water Polo’s Olympic Development Program (ODP) has no connection with Junior Olympic competition. There is no requirement to participate in one in order to compete in the other.
  • USA Water Polo allocates limited numbers of spots for each Zone to compete at JOs. The number of teams per age/gender category are yet to be published but based on past experiences we are confident that at least one of each of our teams will qualify.
  • Athletes will need to be Gold members of USA Water Polo prior to Southwest Zone Championships.
  • Athletes are required to be affiliated with the club for which they are competing. We will provide a deadline for families to make necessary changes depending on which club will be the “lead” for each team.
  • AQTX and Longhorn will not be making travel arrangements for participating families, including ground transportation in California. It’s expected that athletes lodge somewhere reasonably close to where we will be competing in Orange County.
  • Costs per athlete will cover coaches’ travel and time, tournament entry fees, and miscellaneous costs associated with participating. Amount and method of payment TBD.
  • Athletes will likely be required to have team gear (suit, shirt) for the trip (check out our online store!)

Zoom Seminar on Water Polo in College

All our parents and athletes are encouraged to join my podcast partner Joe Linehan on Tuesday, April 6 at 7:30 PM. Joe will cover everything you might want to know about playing in college, whether varsity or club. He is among the most knowledgeable people in Texas, maybe the US, on the subject. He will do a presentation followed by an extended Q&A session (I’ll be there to answer whatever I can as well). You’ll get an email with Zoom info as soon as I get it. But put it on your calendar!

Swim2Score

We’ve replaced our splashball program with Swim2Score, a program for those age 5-11. Coach Sam Smith is leading the charge and will work with athletes for 30 minutes on swim stroke technique, followed by 30 minutes of fun water polo games. All AquaTex Novice athletes are invited to join us for free. Pricing for new athletes is forthcoming. We are on the calendar tentatively for Sunday, April 18 at 10:00 AM. Stay tuned!

ShieldyJOS

TAGS Roster Call, Athlete Recruiting, JOs, Thursday Practices

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We’re back at Lake Creek and there are a lot of updates about the spring and summer schedules, including JOs! Read on.

TAGS Roster Call

The Thunder Spring Invite tournament is full so we’re calling on our families to commit to the next big non-high school tournament of the spring. TAGS is back in Pearland on April 24-24 and we want to send at least two teams to go. Roster categories are 8th grade u boys/coed; 8th grade u girls; 6th grade u coed. We will be asking our friends from Longhorn to join us as usual. Our team commitment is due by April 14 so check it out and commit now.

Longhorn Partnership

We’ll be continuing our rostering partnership with Longhorn until the end of the summer. That means we should have plenty of athletes and coaches for SWZ Championships and JOs plus other more local tournaments.

Athlete Recruiting

A quick note on the importance of your athletes to us and efforts to recruit them to participate in competitions or practices for other clubs.

First, if any family becomes aware of a coach, administrator, parent, or athlete from another club attempting to recruit an AquaTex athlete to train or compete with them notify me or one of our other coaches immediately.

Then, we understand that athletes and families have a lot of choices to make regarding their water polo clubs, and we’re always grateful for those who choose to be with us. We are continuously working on strengthening the culture of AquaTex Waterpolo. So we want to encourage our families to stick with us (we think we have a lot to offer!).

Therefore, any athlete who is found to have played for another club without the explicit permission of AquaTex coaches will be required to meet with me and Mark Parshall prior to returning. As a point of reference, Thunder in North Texas will kick any athlete off the team permanently if they play for another club without permission. We prefer not to go quite that far, but we also want to encourage athletes and families to stay with us.

As mentioned above, our relationship with Longhorn remains in place until the end of the summer. We will combine rosters with them whenever necessary. But we don’t ever recruit from any clubs, including Longhorn, and expect the same courtesy from them.

Athletes Contacting Coaches

I’m really pleased that several of our athletes are asking if I’d be willing to be a reference for a job. The answer to that is yes! However, families should know that athletes under 18 should contact me via a parent. If minor athletes contact me directly, if I do respond it will be to both the parent and the athlete. So better to simply contact me via a parent or guardian in the first place. Same with all of our coaches.

USA Water Polo Affiliation

We’re asking all our families and athletes who are practicing with AquaTex to update their USA Water Polo profiles so they are affiliated with AquaTex. All athlete’s IDs should display the AquaTex Waterpolo Club. And keep that photo updated too!

Lake Creek Schedule Update

A reminder of the club-wide update about our Lake Creek schedule from Coach Mark. We’ve made some changes of our own for the duration of our time at Lake Creek, until April 17ish (hopefully back to Micki sooner after which we’ll add Sunday practices again).

Weekly youth practices at Lake Creek will be Monday, Wednesday, AND Thursday, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

There will be no masters or Swim2Score (our updated splashball program) until we return to Micki.

Tournaments

Some major updates to our competitive calendar. Much more info on Junior Olympics coming soon.

  • April 24-25, Texas Age Group Championships (TAGS), Pearland, TX.
  • June 11-13, Southwest Zone Junior Olympics Qualifiers, TBD, TX
  • July 17-20, National Junior Olympics Session 1 (boys), Irvine, CA
  • July 22-25, National Junior Olympics Session 2 (girls), Irvine, CA

More Olympic Development Program

Two more clinics are available to anyone who wants to participate in the Southwest Zone’s Olympic Development Program. Those who make one of the multiple rosters for the program will likely participate at a West Region Championship in San Antonio.

  • Sunday, April 11: North Texas Clinic, LISD Eastside Aquatic Center
  • Sunday, April 18: Houston Clinic, Cy-Fair Natatorium
  • Week of April 19: Roster Selections and Announcements
  • Memorial Day Weekend: Tentative – ODP West Region Championships, San Antonio

That was a lot.

Good luck to all our high school athletes who may be competing this weekend! Have a great week and we’ll see you on Monday.

James

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Holiday Schedule, Recruiting Chalk Talk, Tourney Recaps

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The 2020 tournament season is over. So, a recap and some other important scheduling updates for us through January.

North Texas Tournaments

AquaTex finished its busiest ever year with four rosters at two tournaments 40 minutes apart in North Texas. And while the younger teams were pretty lean they found some success Ironman-style. Our 7th grade u co-ed team, featuring the scoring-addicted Tomas and our lefty assist-man assassin Tristan, helped the team to an impressive fourth place finish, including yet another shootout win to finish the competition.

Also at TAGS, our very young 9th grade u co-ed team held up against some teams featuring some pretty huge players. That included a gutsy win over Cowtown to finish the tournament on a high note. Jacob took Coach Kendall’s advice and scored some timely goals from the posts, James was a scoring machine from the left-hand side, Tristan (that guy again!) was a huge attacking threat from his left-hander side, and Morgan won every sprint she started, plus continued her assault on the front of the cage.

Across town our 18u girls had a very good weekend with a third place finish at the Cowtown Stampede. Kendall continues her perimeter shooting onslaught, Cammi is becoming a counter attacking machine, and Morgan earns the attention of the opposing team with her attacks on the cage. Mac and Riley (the thief) were big contributors to the very successful weekend for the 18u boys, who went 3-1 to place top four in the highly competitive festival.

A year-ending well done to all those who participated and excelled, including our friends from Longhorn.

Scheduling

The schedule for December and January is updated. We will not be taking our traditional year-end break but should have some fun practices before January arrives. The calendar is now updated: we’ll continue Monday/Wednesday weekday practices and weekend practices on (mostly) Saturday. Once school is out, practices will be from noon to 2 PM.

This Week

We are moving practice from Wednesday to Thursday this week due to a high school swim meet. On Wednesday we’ll have our 7:30 Chalk Talk with Justin Pudwill joining us to share his success in utilizing a 4-2 offense while he was head coach at Whittier College.

And all practices originally planned for Saturday are moved to Sunday at noon. That includes FREE Scorpions Ball for any athlete age 5-11. Bring lots of friends, and spread the word.

Masters

We will plan on hosting masters’ shoot-arounds after any youth practices during the weekend. Sessions will start at 2 PM or whenever the youth practice ends.

COVID and Coaches

To perhaps help give some peace of mind to our families, some Covid news. I today tested negative as did Coaches Alon and Kendall in the past couple weeks. We’re pleased to note that we have experienced only one known case among coaches and athletes since March, and that athlete had stopped practicing with us weeks before reporting it. So there was never any exposure to it by other athletes.

January Parent Meeting and Collegiate Recruiting

We have an online parent meeting on the calendar for Thursday, January 7 at 7:30 PM. In addition to going over plans for the club in 2021 we expect to have an extremely knowledgeable guest join us to go over details of college water polo recruiting. An invitation is forthcoming. Parents and athletes are welcome to take part.

Gear for the Holidays

Not only is there plentiful AquaTex Waterpolo swag available for your holiday gifting needs, you can also support the TXWaterpolo Podcast and news site by giving loved ones some beautiful TXWaterpolo (and Total Waterpolo) gear at the TWp Sports Store.

Happy Holidays, everyone, and I’ll see you bundled in the parking lot.

James

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TAGS, Cowtown Stampede Mark the End of 2020

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We’re headed to North Texas this weekend for two tournaments, so check in for all the relevant details.

Tournaments

General rules: athletes should be there 45 minutes prior to game time prepared for warmup outdoors.

Cowtown Stampede

  • AquaTex 18u girls first game vs. Viper Pigeons at 3:00 PM Saturday
  • AquaTex 18u boys first game vs. Cowtown Renegades at 1:30 PM Saturday.

Find everything related to the Cowtown Stampede on the event page. That includes links to the two waivers required of each athlete, coach, and table worker (get those done by Wednesday please); rosters and cap numbers; safety guidelines; and the live schedule. Those teams will be coached by Tom Andrew.

TAGS

  • AquaTex 9th grade u first game vs. Thunder Black at 9:30 AM on Saturday.
  • AquaTex 7th grade u first game vs. Thunder Silver at noon.

Same with the Texas Age Group Championships. You can find rosters, the schedule, safety guidelines and a lot more on the event page. Coached by James, Kendall, and Becca Andrew.

Holiday Training Schedule

Given that we have new coaches (yes!) who will be available, we will not be having our traditional two-week break between Christmas and the new year. We’re waiting for the swim team to nail down its schedule but you can tentatively plan on practice on Mondays, Wednesdays at noon and on Saturdays at noon (likely) during the weeks school is closed. Of course, exceptions for Christmas Day, New Years Day.

Also, because of a swim meet scheduled at Micki on Dec. 18-19 we will shift all our water polo programming to Sunday the 2oth. That includes Scorpion Ball, youth training, and masters. Check out the calendar.

See you there,

James

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Roster Calls for TAGS, Cowtown Stampede

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Happy Holidays, AquaTexans. Right to it as the year winds down.

Roster Calls

Only a few players have signed up via the TeamUnify interface for the two remaining tournaments of 2020, which both take place in North Texas on December 14-15. I strongly suspect that there are more who actually want to play so let me know by Wednesday if you’re committed. You can email or SMS me if you prefer.

  • Cowtown Stampede
    • 18u boys: none
    • 18u girls: Kendall
  • TAGS
    • 9th grade u coed: Aaron, Jacob, Kelly, Cruz
    • 7th grade u coed: Cruz

We have committed to both tournaments (and paid) so want the biggest AQTX turnout possible. Rosters are due from me to the tournament organizers on Dec 5 so I need to know soon who wants to go.

A couple other pieces of info for each tournament:

TAGS Hotel Info

The deadline to reserve your rooms at the tournament hotel has been extended to Friday, December 4th.  The tournament hotel is the Hampton Inn & Suites Dallas – The Colony. The hotel rate is only $70/night and it is directly across the highway from the pool (very close to the facility with many restaurants within walking distance from the hotel).
  • Address/Phone: 3650 Plano Pkwy, The Colony, TX 75056, 469-362-1111
  • Rate: $70 per night (Friday and/or Saturday)
  • Reserve Rooms by Friday, December 4th (UPDATED)
  • Free Breakfast, Parking, Wifi

Cowtown Stampede

There are two waivers each athlete, coach, and table worker need to complete before they are allowed into the facility. Both waivers along with everything else you need to know about the tournament can be found here.

There are no spectators allowed inside the venue, although they are planning to stream the games live (link can be found at that link above). Each team is allowed to provide two table workers per game (same volunteers throughout the tournament preferred), so if you are interested in helping out and being able to watch the games in person, let me know and I can add you to our table worker list.

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2020 Texas Age Group Championships (TAGS)

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Schedule/Results

AquaTex has entered a 9th grade and under and a 7th grade and under coed team for the final tournament of 2020.

Rosters

7th Grade Ucap
Cruz Crowley3
Finn Harrington5
Flora Garcia6
Jake Roberts7
Nick Musil9
Tomas Bellavia11
Landon Vickery12
Zaff Garden13
Tristan Chamas15
9th grade ucap
Landon Vickery2
Nick Musil3
Max Vale4
Jacob Gerakos6
Cruz Crowley8
Tristan Chamas10
James Strauss14
Kelly Murphy16
Morgan Spooner18

Details

Texas Age Group State Water Polo Championship (TAGS Water Polo Champs):

Dates: December 12-13, 2020. Games will begin on Saturday morning, run
all day on Saturday/Sunday, and then end around 4:00 pm on Sunday

Location: Lewisville ISD Eastside Aquatic Center, 5729 Memorial Dr, The Colony TX 75056. Two all deep courses running simultaneously.

Divisions/Team Entries:

9th Grade & Younger Mixed (11): Aqua Swift, Aquatex, CFWPC, Cowtown, Pegasus, Southside, Thunder Black, Thunder Silver, Trident, Viper Pigeons, Zilla

7th Grade & Younger Mixed (9): Aqua Swift, Aquatex, Lone Star/Mavericks, Pegasus Blue, Pegasus Red, Thunder Black, Thunder Silver, Viper Pigeons, Zilla

Roster Deadline: Monday, December 7, 2020 at 9pm (PT)

Schedule: An online schedule will be sent to everyone the week of Monday, November 30th

Physical Distancing: This event will have physical distancing guidelines/procedures which will be sent out along with the schedule in early December.

No Spectators: There will be no spectators allowed into the facility for this event.

Streaming Option: One videographer per team will be allowed into the facility to film games on their choice of media (Facebook Live, etc.). Videographers must provide their own equipment, platform, and wifi network. The videographer will be allowed into the facility 10 minutes prior to the game and assigned a specific location to film games.

TAGS Water Polo Champs – Tournament T-Shirt: Anyone can purchase a tournament t-shirt online. There are short and long sleeve versions available until December 31st. Please allow for 7-10 days for the shirt to arrive (busy time of year). FYI, the tournament t-shirt will not be on sale at the event.

USAWP Apparel: There will be USAWP Apparel being sold on site at the tournament.

Tournament Hotel

  • HAMPTON INN & SUITES DALLAS – THE COLONY, TX
  • Address/Phone: 3650 Plano Pkwy, The Colony, TX 75056, 469-362-1111
  • Rate: $70 per night (Friday and/or Saturday)
  • Reserve Rooms by Monday, November 30th
  • Free Breakfast, Parking, Wifi
  • Group Reservations