This kid is becoming famous…this is a short video, but it is still a big deal as Kiley Neushul’s star continues to rise.

Kiley Neushel, the young Freshman phenom, continues to lead her teams to victories with a 7-5 victory over perenniel power Foothill High School. Newport ripped CDM 9-3 in the third place game.

OCRegister Article on the game

Great story from the Chicago Sun-Times about a high school team built in a predominately African-American neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.  They have 12 varsity players but not enough yet for jv or frosh-soph.  This is exciting development for the sport.
Read more here 

Contra Costa times naming their boys water polo players of the year. Contra Costa Times article

Granted, the actual article is really hard to read due to some technical difficulties, but here is a great article on CCS boys player of the year Paul Rudolph.  San Mateo Daily Journal article 

Dan Albano blogging about water polo.  Just a fun poll on who will win the Holiday Cup tournament this weekend.

Click here 

The USA Water Polo Men’s Senior National Team has announced their “A” and “B” training rosters.  A number of players are in Europe playing and will show up later: Tony Azevedo, Ryan Bailey, Jesse Smith, Jeff Powers, Layne Beaubien, Peter Hudnut, Adam Wright, Peter Varellas and Dreason Barry.  Some interesting notes: the return of Jeremy Pope and Sean Nolan.

Read usawaterpolo.com for the release 

USA WATER POLO – MEN’S “A” TEAM TRAINING SQUAD – JANUARY 2008

Merrill Moses (G)
Genai Kerr (G)
Brandon Brooks (G)
Chay Lapin (G)
Brett Ormsby
John Mann
Adam Hewko
Thomas Hopkins
Rick Merlo
Kevin Witt
Brian Alexander
Tim Hutten
Jeff Tyrell
Shea Buckner
JW Krumpholtz
Juan Delgadillo
Michael Sharf
Matt Sagehorn
Colin Mello
Justin Johnson (alt)
Jeremy Pope (alt)

USA WATER POLO – MEN’S “B” TEAM TRAINING SQUAD

Sean Nolan (G)
Peter Sabbatini (G)
Jimmy Freidrich (G)
Travis Stachowski (G)
Caleb Hamilton
JP MacDonnell
Scott Swanson
Peter Kruzeka
Travis Noll
Bryan Snyder
Trey Davis
Josh Samuels
Griffin White
Nico Sardo
Will Smith
Jacob Smith
Tyler Jemmet
Tommy Briskey
Clay Jorth
Spencer White
Grant Miller
Clayton Synder
Jacob Murphy
Spencer Hamby
Ben Hohl
Matt Preciado
Brett Hays
Bret Lathrope
Andrew Milkovich
Scott Davidson
Brett McLeave

In the Battle of the Bay, Newport Harbor defeated Corona del Mar 5-3. The teams will take a break for the holiday and return to jointly host the 16-team Holiday Cup next week.

Daily Pilot article

Basically, the NCAA had made a rule eliminating live blogging at their NCAA events. Now, they have relented, but with some interesting restrictions. This is hilarious, here is the rule: Blogging for men’s and women’s water polo, you are allowed to do 3 posts per quarter and 1 at halftime. I am not sure how they are going to monitor this, but oh well. Blogging is here to stay and could be a great way for the NCAA to publicize non-revenue sports…on the other hand there is a limited audience to these sports so I can see why they want to keep these people. Anyway, read the rest of the NCAA’s plan.

Diablo Valley College (DVC) has a new men’s water polo coach, John Roemer. Roemer is an alum of both DVC and Cal

Contra Costa Times.com 

From the Long Beach Press Telegram (12/17/07):

The LBSU women’s water polo team signed signed a pair of recruits - Krizia Cerda of Coral Reef Senior High in Miami, Fla., and Heather McKeon of Wilson High.

Both players are high school seniors and will join the 49ers for the 2009 season.

Cerda, a member of the youth national team, is a 2007 prep All-American and three-time first-team All-Dade County selection.

McKeon is a 5-foot-7 attacker who was named first-team All-Moore League in 2007 for the league champion Bruins.

LongBeachState.com press release

We’ve reported on some of these via university press releases but the San Diego Union Tribune provides the following list of water polo signees:

GIRLS WATER POLO (5): Coronado’s Alana Burgess (SDSU); Poway’s Fallon Newman (SDSU); West Hills’ Traci Robertson (Siena); Coronado’s Hannah Sebenaler (UCLA); University City’s Paige Squiller (USC).