West Midlands won the Boys U14 Swim England Inter-Regional Water Polo Championships, held over the weekend of 26/27 November and hosted by the West Midlands at Walsall Gala Baths. There were 24 games with 365 goals (West Midlands played, and won, 6 games and scored 47 goals).
The group games were won by goal differences of 4,2,2 and 3. We were 2 goals down to Ireland with 3 minutes remaining (hopefully not a sign of the final to come!). 8-4 against East Midlands, 4-2 London, 5-3 Ireland, 7-4 East. The semi final was actually won by a single goal scored with 10 seconds remaining, otherwise we might have had penalties. We were 2 goals down in the 3rd quarter but ended up 9-8 winners against North West.
A fantastic final, against Ireland (who we also playing in the group stages) started well with us up 5-0 in the first quarter. The team seemed to just find their form. From that it was a case of holding our nerve and rotating the players to maintain the work rate through to the final whistle. 13-6 final score.
The real difference to winning was the defensive effort – we restricted goals scored against us when man down to 18% which shows the fantastic defensive effort everyone put in. Water Polo is a sport of tactics and hard defensive work. In attack 8 of the team scored so a good spread (9 got majors). Manups goals achieved a 60% scoring rate which is very good.
The level of fitness and stamina everyone showed was really good. Erik our captain, pictured above with our Regional President, also received the Most Valuable Player and joint Top Scorer of the competition and was a real leader for the team.
A big well done to the Team pictured above (left to right):
Josh Drury-Tew, Jacob Lewis, Freddie Trevis, Matt Walton, Filippos Psychogios, Reuben Tutty, Erik Buhaescu (Captain), Amar Krajisnik, Ethan Chu, Eriksson Yip, Joel Perkins, Seb Lloyd-Evans, Harry Forty
And well done to the Regional Staff who continuously support the Team:
Head Coach – John Halstead
Assistant Coach – Terri Halstead
Team Manager – Emma Trevis