Rankings: 

• 12U coed:   4th overall
• 14U boys:    3rd overall
• 14U girls:     7th overall
• 16U boys:    1st overall
• 16U girls:     1st in their division

Traveling to these tournaments means a lot to the players and the coaches because it promotes team bonding and growth in and out of the water. For many of the 14U athletes this was their first team trip without their families. OWPC parents are responsible to travel the athletes until the 14U division when team travel starts to be encouraged whenever possible. 

Coach Eko commented that “this tournament was not just about playing water polo. It was about learning to travel without their parents, learning how to prepare their bodies (sleep, nutrition and warm-clothes) to compete, learning how to share rooms with teammates & be a courteous roomate, and what it means to be accountable for themselves.”

When asked what he thought about the tournament so far  Coach Kale replied, “Most importantly the boys are having fun, really enjoying themselves, making friends, playing good water polo so as a coach I’m pumped. This is a huge opportunity for the boys to continue the improvements they have been doing. The air is cold, the water is warm and the boys are ready to go!”

Travel is also important for our club’s younger players. Even though they don’t get the team travel experience the club’s 12U coed team got lots of team bonding during the trip too. As a team they went to support the 14U boys. They all sat together, waving the Hawaiian flag and cheering in support of the older boys.The 14U boys came to support the 12Us during one of their games as well.  At the end of the games all of the Hawaii kids would make tunnels that their club teammates would run through, laughing and cheering.  

Although traveling to play water polo is the priority, the time spent out of the pool is equally memorable.  The boys 16U athletes had fun bonding over ping pong, bowling and of course ‘In and Out Burger.’ One of Coach Shawn’s priorities during travel is scheduling study halls for his athletes. He says, “ We are students first and OPWC athletes second.”

Encouraging our OWPC athletes to be self-advocating student athletes is a pillar of our club. One of OWPC Club’s missions is for all of our athletes to continue past OWPC and play in college. During these team travel experiences we try to visit college campuses and to watch the college teams play. This trip some of the athletes got to see Stanford play ASU and University of the Pacific play Cal State Eastbay. While watching Stanford play this trip the athletes got to see two former Hawaii athletes play. And next year Cal State Eastbay will have two Hawaii girls on the team. 

Led by Coach Kale, the 14U boys had a great tournament. Expectations were high with many of the athletes wanting to place #1. Though they did not get that placement, they did not disappoint with their 3rd place overall standing. The first day of the tournament there was a solid showing from our goalies and defense.  OWPC beat CA republic 16-2 and Diablo A Team 6-3.

 Beating Diablo A team was a highlight of the tournament for many of the boys, “I wasn’t expecting to beat Diablo A team!”  goalie, Aaron Zhao said during an interview after day one.

     Kodi Kwan also commented about the success of day one, “We went to work and played as a team. CA Republic was a good warmup to see everyone’s possibilities and see what we are strong at.”  

The boys lost the third game of the tournament against 680 A but came back later that day to win against Santa Cruz. They were led by a winning goal from one of our 12 year olds and a winning block from another one of our 12 year olds.  

Coach Kale said, “[The boys had a] great showing. The boys had lots of learning. [They] learned all about playing in circumstances that were difficult.”  One of the most important goals of these tournaments are the learning opportunities our athletes wouldn’t have on the island. Kaua Hudgens, OWPC 14U attacker commented that, “I learned alot from Coach Kale telling me what to do better next time. And he put a lot into my mindset for the next game.” 

 The OWPC 14U girls came out strong on their first day of games winning their first game against San Jose Express 9-3 with all the girls rotating through different positions in the pool. Unfortunately, they lost their second game to Santa Cruz Black, which put them into the 5th-8th place pool for Sunday's games. Sunday's first game was against the East Coast/ MidWest Combo team, Asphalt Green, where our OWPC girls led most of the game but allowed a corner shot with only a couple seconds left in the game to tie it up and force a shoot-out, where we only found the back of the net 1 time and lost. The girls rallied after the heartbreaking loss to beat NorCal 8-4, taking 7th in the tournament. 

The 16U girls team was made up of a blend of our older 14U girls and the 16U girls and were playing in Division 2, middle ranked 12 teams. They cruised through their first day of games beating both their opponents by double digits and only giving up 1 goal between the two games.

     Coach Eko said, “The team's goal for their Saturday games was to focus on implementing multiple angle-angle drives and clearing out to learn how to balance out and communicate with each other.”

They advanced on to the semis in the morning where they matched up against SB 805.  SB 805 were 14U athletes that had won JOs this past summer. The team switched back to running a double center and found success early out of center forcing SB into a zone where our perimeter shooters did a great job at attacking the zone and finding the back of the net. During this game two of the starters were rolled by half and a third starter got rolled in the 4th quarter and they held on for the win. After a 45 minute break, the girls got back in the water to play the Merced based team, SKIP Water Polo.  Our team came out strong and quickly established a 4 point lead but then struggled in the second quarter when the fatigue from the first game started to break through and let SKIP back in the game. They battled back and took control of the game in the second half to earn the win (10-8), taking 1st in their division. 

The 12U coed team came out strong, dominating with two solid wins the first day of the tournament. They played San Jose Express B and won 18-4.  Later that evening they returned to the pool to play Bella Vista and won 17-6 .  The second day of the tournament the kids played Santa Cruz and they shut down OWPC’s counter attack. They lost 1-9.  The third game they played was against San Jose Express A and “played their hearts out.” As coach Audrey described. The gut wrenching game ended in a shootout where our 12U’s lost, placing 4th overall in the tournament. A bonus game was played because of a forfeit and our little Hawaii athletes got more pool time and water polo experience.