SOUTHERN UTAH WATER POLO!!!!

Water Polo has begun!  It is an all new adventure for all of us.  This is the first year that Southern Utah has had a club team.  It is made up of any kid from 7th grade through 12th.  We unfortunately do not have enough students from any school interested in having a team for each school but all together we have enough for a girls team, a boys JV team and a boys Varsity team.  Sophie and Josh are the only kids from Pine View.  Most of the kids are from Dixie and Snow Canyon.    This was at SUU's pool.  It is the only one big enough to have 2 games going at the same time.  We had us, Cedar, Canyon View, Springville, Bear River, Weber and Delta were all there.  Each had both a girl and boy team EXCEPT Delta.  Delta had one team of mixed that played against the boys and believe me they were tough!  They had some really good girls.

We are SUWP in Yellow.

Sophie and Josh both "had" to get new suits for this sport.  Sophie's zips down.  It's super weird but awesome because there's nowhere for another person to grab.  Also, it's super modest.  Josh on the other hand had to grow up really fast.  It was Speedo time for him.  Usually we have a strictly no Speedo until you're a Senior policy but in this case we were out ruled. 

Here they are getting their nails examined to make sure they are short enough to play.  If anyone scratches anyone else, they are kicked out of the game.

Here is the girls coach Tim Haws (always wearing a visor) giving them some last minute instructions.   Coach Jesse Kochel, (no visor) telling Sophie something.  Jesse is the main coach over the boys.

Each game has four quarters.  5 minutes each for the girls and 8 for the boys.  With 2 minutes between and 3 minutes in between halves.

At the half Jesse told them to get aggressive.  Here is Sophie shooting a goal.  She was awesome!

It's a lot like basketball the way they set up and make plays.  They also have a shot clock.   At the half they trade sides.  They also have fouls and free throws.  We only have one girl on our team that has ever played before.  She just moved here from California.
 

This tournament was awesome.  Friday night they both played 3 games.  So it was...go, go, go!  Watch the girls, switch sides, watch the boys, then switch sides and watch the girls again.  Sophie was, and always is, number 4.  Josh's number gets changed up because so far we haven't been in a tournament that plays a JV team.  So we are trying to play everyone in one team.  So Josh has been switching up numbers so we don't have the same number in the game at the same time.  In this one he is number 18.

In the first game he didn't get a lot of playing time because it was our first game ever.  But he did well when he was in.  Then we went back to the girls.  Tim said to me before the game, "If Sophie would just get aggressive, she would be unstoppable."  We it's not in her nature to be mean,  But in the 2nd game there was a girl that we'd wish would have been kicked out of the tournament.  Apparently she'd been kicking Sophie the entire time but it wasn't until the 3rd time when it was so incredibly obvious that I jumped up and screamed at the girl and the ref that they finally put her in time out for 5 minutes.  They should have thrown her completely out but what it really did was TICK Sophie OFF!  Which was great!  Because after that she scored 4 points.  She got mad and turned into a monster.  It was AWESOME!!!  I wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't there to see it with my own eyes.

 Here is one of her goals!

 Here is her free throw that she got from having that girl kick her.  She did a great job not retaliating.  I would have.

 Here is another one of her goals.  It was so much fun to watch.  They won this game.

Back to the boys.  In this one Josh was number 2.

Here he is with Mitchell.

After each game the coach would sit down with them and talk to them.

Next girls game.

I love Jeese's face in this one

Sophie with the ball.

 

 Back to Josh, now sporting a white #2.

This is my favorite picture, Josh swam over a guy and got sent to the penalty box.  It was awesome!

Jesse is an official too. So when we weren't playing, he was reffing.

Coach Tyler from the Swim Team helps coach water polo too.

This is a fun bunch of kids.  It's good to see students from each of the High Schools getting along.

This is what Josh thought was the coolest thing of the entire day Saturday...George had half of the girls team all over him the entire time.  Apparently they are "good friends". 

Time for a cool down and then travel back home.  It was an amazing weekend.  I am shocked and proud at how well my kids did.  This is a really fun sport to watch.