Press
USG - Water Polo
Monday, April 21, 2008
Water polo's move makes big splash
PAUL DELOS SANTOS pdelossant@thespectrum.com
CEDAR CITY - Utah Summer Games director Casey McClellan smiled. His plan to move water polo to April worked. Instead of the four or five teams competing in the games, he was witnessing 19 teams (10 boys and nine girls) in running for a gold medal.
"We have a great turnout," McClellan said. "The kids are having a good time. That's we had hoped for. We want them to have a great tournament and enjoy Cedar City and compete for a gold medal."
The water polo tournament continues today at 8 a.m. inside of the Southern Utah Natatorium. It is set to run until Saturday. "I look at the competition and the looks on the kids' faces, it looks like they're having a great time. The facility is beautiful. we are extremely excited," McClellan said. "So far the games have been competitive."
The decision to move water polo from the summer into April was made to coincide with the spring water polo season across the state of Utah. The lack of able teams caused a drop off in the quality of competition in the tournament, and due to summer vacation and scheduling conflicts.
"We did water polo in April is because the last couple of years, we haven't enough teams to have a good tournament," McClellan said. "We were told because most teams break up and that March, April and May were the best times for water polo teams to participate. So, we said, 'Let's do it.'"
By moving water polo into April instead of June, it gives the teams another opportunity to gather valuable experience before entering their state tournaments."The teams are competing to prepare for their state championships. This is great preparation," McClellan said. "They are in a tournament setting and can carry it on into state championships in a different pool and against a team they normally wouldn't be playing other wise."
Canyon View is one of the teams gaining valuable experience. As a 3A school, they rarely get an opportunity to play some of the bigger schools in water polo.
"The biggest benefit we're playing the toughest teams in the state that we don't get to meet with," Canyon View coach Kirt Brown said. "We've never played Kearns, Hunter or Skyline because they're 5A teams. When we go up north, we have a tendency to play 3A teams and, maybe, some 4A teams. So playing against bigger stronger teams helps us improve."
Had the games remained in the summer, some of Brown's players might not have competed in the tournament.
"I'm not going to lie, I would be doing other things in the summer," Canyon View's Meaghan Burr said. "If you're swimming, (the summer) gives you a breather because if you swim in the morning and have water polo at night, you're just ready to die."
Burr's teammate Mari Anne Croft added, "It's hard to schedule in the summer and it's more convenient (to have the games in the middle of the season rather than the summer.)"
The moving of water polo into April has made McClellan think of other ways that the games could be improved by moving some events out of the summer and into mid-April or May.
"It has really given us the energy to look to expand the games and look at the best time of the year for certain events to be this successful," McClellan said. "We want to take this momentum and plan for other events in the future."
