The US Club Championships have begun on the girls side. Full list of results from bracket play is online. This is a good preview of JOs - although the clubs are without their Cadet and Youth players. Cadets are training/trying out at Los Alamitos for the Youth Pan Ams in the Domincan Republic (the travel team will miss JOs) and the Youth team left for Australia last night.

Boys USCC brackets are also up on the website www.usclubchampionships.com

Navy picked up a deep recruiting class for their Fall Men’s team. Navy men’s water polo coach Mike Schofield recently announced the team.

Navy Water Polo Class of 2011
Name               Hometown/High School
Luke Baldwin       La Grange Park,Ill. / Fenwick
Alex Buck          Lisle,Ill. / Naperville North
Jordan Carter      Bloomfield Hills,Mich. / Wylie E. Groves
Eric Chang         Hacienda Heights,Calif. / Glen Wilson
Joel Cuda          San Antonio,Texas / Alamo Heights
Garrett Griffin    San Diego,Calif. / Mar Vista
Stephen Hicks      Cupertino,Calif. / Menlo Atherton
Alex Kofsky        Los Angeles,Calif. / Harvard Westlake/Northwestern Prep
Nathan Le Roy      Arlington Heights,Ill. / Loyola Academy
Alex McCoy         Texarkana,Texas / Texas
Kyle McGhie        Newport Beach, Calif. Newport Harbor
Robert Newman      Bonita,Calif. / Bonita Vista
Jason Peck         Irvine,Calif. / Northwood
Ryan Shipley       Arlington,Va. / Gonzaga
Chris Vahey        Oakland Park, Fla. / Northeast

We recently received a question in the comments section and we reached out and sought the answer.  Interesting stuff:

The Comment/Question:
I’m curious to know what schools have girls water polo teams of any kind in Washington.  I am from Oregon and we have one system for high school polo.  It seems to me that there are too few schools participating in Washington to separate them into two leagues.  I have been trying for months to get info about Washington water polo and this is the first I’ve seen about the two leagues.  I’m guessing then that Sammamish, Newport, and Mercer Island are in the “other” league.  What caused the split?

Answer from a Washington Coach:

Here is the lowdown:

Background Info:
Approximately four years ago, Washington High School Water Polo was all one
organization which was governed by a President (which was me at the time)
and a representative from each of our divisions.  We were scheduled to have
approximately 30 teams playing for the upcoming girls season and 22 for the
boys season (I may be off a bit with the boys numbers)  We did not follow
the WIAA standards exactly, but we did have rules as to eligibility,
combined teams etc…

The Break Up:
I was approached by my Athletic Director and told that the South Puget Sound
League AD’s were going to form their own water polo league and in essence
seize control of all of those teams.  In some AD’s minds, there were teams
competeting with an unfair advantage and they felt that the league was
unorganized etc…  My theory was that some schools had coaches who could
not organize and coordinate well with their schools thus giving a bad
representation of the league as a whole.
The leagues split and in essence became what is known as the “Club League”
and the “School League”.  For the first year, we still held a combined
championship, but since have each had our own championship tournaments.  The
school league is comprised of 19 teams mostly in the South Puget Sound Area.
Curtis, Wilson, Gig Harbor, Peninsula, Puyallup, Rogers, Emerald Ridge,
Enumclaw etc…
The club league is in the North Puget Sound area and is comprised of 8 teams
like Mercer Island, Newport, Bainbridge Island, Sammamish, Shorewood etc…
There have been talks to try and merge the leagues but as of yet it has only
been talk.

The Differences:
The school league is governed by Athletic Directors from member schools.
The club league is governed by participating coaches.

The school league follows all rules regarding academic eligibility etc…
and are recognized by their high schools.  Some club league rules are
different and not all teams are recognized or a part of their schools.

The school league is a part of the school and is insured by the schools.
The club league operates as a USWP league.

Despite what the SEC, ACC, and Big Ten say, the Pac-Ten is the conference of champions.  Anyway, we (water polo) certainly help in this equation..but very interesting.  And yes, Im pretty sure the SEC will say: great you won all these “other” sports, call us when you can win men’s basketball or football.

Conference  Men/Combined  Women  Total
Pacific-10       3          5      8
Big Ten          5          2      7
Southeastern     3          4      7
Atlantic Coast   1          4      5
Big 12           1          1      2
Ivy League       1          1  2

The National Club Championships arrive in the East Bay this weekend. Tournaments will be contested in 14-, 16- and 18-under girls.

No Laguna Beach or Commerce in the 14s. Out of California entries are Florida Coast in 16s and 18s and Washington WPC in the 16s.

Official website is www.usclubchampionships.com

Italian club Pro Recco won European club waterpolo championship.  It is the fourth time they have won it(1965, 1983, 2003 and 2007).  They Jug Dubrovnik from Croatia, which was the reigning champion: 9-8 (4-3, 2-3, 2-1, 1-1) Maurizio Felugo scored the game winning goal.

Waterpolo-World.com: Felugo does it again: Recco campioni d´Europa 

The story itself is not about water polo although it mentions it. LA Daily News wrote an article the other day that UCLA despites its 30 women’s national championships is receiving a “C” grade for gender compiance.

The story lists the five universities with the most NCAA women’s titles:

Stanford (36)
UCLA (30)
LSU (24)
North Carolina (23)
Texas (22)

All of these women’s sports-centric schools averaged a C-plus.

LA Daily News: Despite titles, UCLA can’t win on Title IX

Have to guide everyone to water polo’s legitimate superstar Tony Azevedo’s website. Pretty simple: Tonyazevedo.net

Read more about Tony’s bio on wikipedia: Tony Azevedo

Loyola Marymount University men’s water polo’s John Loughran reloaded for the upcoming 2007 season with Daniel Smith from Thousand Oaks and Tibor Forai from Medicinsk Skola in Serbia.Loughran: “This is a very talented pair of incoming freshman who will have an opportunity to have an immediate impact on our program,”.

Forai - first-team JO All-America honors and the  Serbian Junior National Team. His club team is Wave WPC

Smith — two-time National Age Group All-American and National Cadet and Youth Team Member.  He is also on Wave FPC.