Hawaii Wins Again

Serena won again tonight, against Cal, big victory against a top school, 7-6. Cal is coached by the former US and Canadian mens national coach Rich Corso. Many Bushido girls have played his teams from LA water polo in Calgary over the years. It was a 5-5 game going into the 4th quarter so she must have made a few of her key saves in the late going (she had 10 in total).

Locally there is lots of stuff happening in the water polo community right now. It will be a quiet weekend but then it takes off a bit from there. 

February 16 we have Metro League games and hopefully will have full Neptune rosters to challenge us. Those games are exciting even if, truth be told, I miss the explosive driving of Heather Carson. There are some yung'uns quickly picking up the slack in that department. Confidence is growing every week so the games are always more interesting than the week before.

February 23 and 24 we host the Team Sask Cadet and Youth teams. There are a couple of games where we play our "Nationals" Bushido/Regina Youth guys against Neptune Men and I will try to get Jesse, Adam and Matt to play those games against us too. Game times are;

Saturday 

12:30 Cadet & Youth Boys

2:00 Cadet & Youth Girls

3:30 Youth Boys (including 3 Regina guys) vs Neptunes

6:30 Cadet & Youth Girls

7:30 Cadet and Youth Boys

Club practice for Bantam and younger still from 5:00-6:30

Sunday

12:15 Cadet Boys

1:15 Cadet & Youth Girls

2:15 Youth Boys (+ Regina 3) vs Neptune Men

3:15 Cadet & Youth Girls

The next weekend, February 29, March 1, 2, the MWPA hosts a shooting clinic with 2 national team athletes as clinicians. This is for Bantam and Cadet and then some Youth girls. More details on that later.

PS Judging by the picture you can tell who I am thinking about this week.

Serena records 8 saves in 2 quarters of play

For those of you following Serena Bredin and her journey through the NCAA with the University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine you will be happy to hear that she won her first game today, 22-8. She left the game just after 1/2 time with the score around 18-5 and having made 8 saves. For perspective, the goalie she has replaced, Meike De Nooy of the Dutch national team, averaged 11 saves per game for Hawaii last year as a league all-star, but that was playing full games. Serena's numbers are pretty good considering it was her first NCAA game and she is coming off a week long medical break from a slight concussion. The goalie at the other end of the pool, who let in 22, is a former Calgary Renegade. Small world eh?

Today was a pretty positive one, I had good 1 on 1 athlete meetings with Shae and Breda, had a good talk with Carson about training energy systems (he is really ready to move his training to the next level), watched Mitchell train quite seriously and was pleased to see Sandra work hard from the earliest part of practice right through. A good day.

The schedule for our weekend games vs Team Saskatchewan (February 23, 24) is now set. That may be the topic of tomorrows post if anyone actually reads this thing day to day.

Lots of People off sick

This is starting off as a frustrating week of practice for the girls teams (guys are doing ok). Dani in a sling for 10 days, Claire sick for at least a week, Sandra at drivers ed, Shae also MIA. That is some key pieces missing from the puzzle. Only Sarah is there with the older girls, not the route to success in the spring. Arghhh. But, we'll have all the younger girls there for Wednesday and Thursday when they are not at UofM with Bantams. Yeah.

The boys are quite different and today I informed the older guys that we are going ahead with the addition of 3 Regina players to our Youth Team. That will give us an almost full roster for Nationals and everyone is quite happy about that.

I am also happy that my brother, Rich, is having much success rebuilding the engine to my little farm tractor. He is something of a mechanical genius. He not only found the tractor for sale at a farm near Perterborough for me but also agreed to rebuild the engine when he drove it and determined its condition. That's a picture of the engine up there on the left, just so you know my life is not all water polo. There'll be a farm blog one day too.

ch-ch-ch-changes

I came across an old photo of Darryl and I today, from 2001; it was taken 9 years after we started Bushido Water Polo. Quite a lot has happened since that picture was taken, the year I was recognized by Sport Manitoba as their Coach of the Year. There have been plenty of high points in the past 7 years but not as many as there could have been and I want to address some of the missing pieces as I look back and plan forward.

In the fall I began to chart a radical path and initiate foundational changes in Manitoba Water Polo. This is a complex process and requires partners that are not commonly pulling in the same direction. I'm tired of seasons with 8 weeks between games and 20 game seasons. Finally there are regional partners to share solutions and I am trying to seize the opportunity.

Observations on Saturday games

Hmmm, interesting day at the pool. Hormones, teens, skill development and competition make such a colourful mix. It's nice to be involved with players who are passionate and skilled. It's frustrating when they are not all on the same page at game time and when they don't trust their learning in times of stress. But, there is hope from what I saw in today's games.

The Bantam girls had a really nice practice at 5:00 after acting like deer-in-headlights during their 4:15 game. That group has come so far is such a short time that there are no reference points for what they are going  through. However, the experience they are gaining now is wildly beneficial and will be paying dividends in Calgary for sure.

Open Women don't need to change anything, just need to get a few more bodies out to the pool so there is a bench. Toward that end we have now added Shelagh P-A to the squad, expect her at the next game (maybe Kelci will actually show up too).

The next 2 weeks the Girls are going to spend Wednesdays and Thursdays planning how they will play on the 16th vs the Neptune Senior team. There will be a playbook given out this week, a summary of the offense and defense we have worked on to date. Nothing new to be taught, just refined while we work on speed, strength, confidence and timing.

Youth Boys, no big changes by me, just an attempt to get the whole team through 2 weeks of 100% attendance, what a dream that is. Neptunes were asking today if we could add a few Monday night games in a bigger space, with less public around. I am all for it, once we have practiced as a team for a bit. Totally in the hands of the boys, work for it or pass it by.

Cadet boys have issues similar to the Girls. Play is up and down and depends on who is in the water not on what our team tactics are. Two huge improvements in the pool today; Luc was countering and taking the ball to the net, Bon! Huge props to Dylan for doing EXACTLY what he is being taught. Steal, pass, go to the net, receive pass, score, simple! And, he did this more than once so we know it wasn't a twitch or a fluke, no it was skill. Plus, he stepped out when the ball came to him at 2m before he shot, nice change. Honourable mention to Pizey for helping bring leadership to the Neptune Cadets for a very close game.

I asked the players at the Academy practice tonight what kind of things they would want to read on a coaches Blog. Got a mixed, limited response since I said there wouldn't be trash talking other clubs or gossiping about what happened at practice the day before. They do want details though on my observations about games they play so that will be an immediate focus. 

One thing I will also do is write some practice background every once in awhile. It's not every day that players understand thematic practices and almost never that they understand the cycles of periodized training. We do have a periodized calendar even if Verhoshansky thinks the model is dead or ill conceived. Of course, my application of periodization is blended organically with a modern Serbian school of athlete development so it has evolved somewhat since the Cold War.

An example of confused athlete thinking today was the reaction of players to practicing a deflection shot that they seldom use. This was an Academy practice so it should include things that add breadth to athlete skill sets and that sometimes means rare, or finesse, shots. I loved the questioning of the drill though, as it indicated real thought and critical evaluation, that was great to see. However, I do constantly try to impress that what you do in a game follows what you do in a practice so if you only practice what you are already good at, or what you do often, then you won't advance too far, too fast.

One thing I did not mention in my early post about February 2nd league games is that I am excited  to be able to help coach the Cadet Boys this week and watch them play as a team (since the 3:30 women's game is Neptune vs Neptune). I have heard they didn't play with too much intensity last week, that will change!

PS check out the Rainbow Wahine link to the left of this page and see the updated Hawaii roster with the data on Serena.

League Schedule

Here are the game times and opponents for the 2008 Metro League. Seems some families are not getting all the competition dates via email. Rosters should all be known by now, email me if you don't know what team you are on.

The schedule and scores from the week one games are listed in yesterdays post so look further down if you want that info.

Let's hope the Neptune men bring out some more old guys to push our Youth Team around a bit more this week. It would be nice to have to play really well for 4 quarters to get a win, or even a close loss. I am also wanting to see how far we have progressed in our understanding of the zone defenses we have been learning; to see if we can play a system and not freelance. Soulja Boi is going to step up this weekend, make some waves.

February 2
2:45-3:30 Bushido Youth Boys v Neptune Men
3:30-4:15 Neptune Sr Women v Neptune Cadet Girls
3:30-4:30 TT* Bushido Cadet Boys v Neptune Cadet Boys
4:15-5:00 Bushido Sr Women v Bushido Cadet Girls

February 16
2:45-3:30 Bushido Youth Boys v Neptune Men
3:30-4:15 Bushido Sr Women v Neptune Cadet Girls 3
:30-4:30 TT* Bushido Cadet Boys v Neptune Cadet Boys
4:15-5:00 Bushido Cadet Girls v Neptune Sr Women

February 23-24 Bushido host Team Sask, games from 12:00 onward, schedule TBA

March 1 No games, MWPA shooting clinic 10:00-4:00?

March 22
2:45-3:30 Bushido Youth Boys v Neptune Men
3:30-4:15 Bushido Cadet Girls v Neptune Cadet Girls
3:30-4:30 TT* Bushido Cadet Boys v Neptune Cadet Boys
4:15-5:00 Bushido Sr Women v Neptune Sr Women

photo credit www.BourneSports.ca