History 2005 -
2006
History 2006 - 2007
History 2007 - 2008
Qld U16 Boys
State Championships, Noosa/Nambour, 8-10 April 2006 |
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At the
Under 16 Queensland Water Polo Club Championships at Sunshine Coast 8 to 10
April, Alstonville’s U/16’s Boys defeated Townsville 9-2 to win bronze
medal. Coach, Mark Tozer is proud of all his players and in particular Matt
Goldie who played outstandingly as goalkeeper, great attacking plays and
goal scoring by Kody Graham, Alex Watson, Ryan Smits, Jedburg Pellandine and
Jeremy Tozer. Well supported in tight defence by Joel Crowther,
Nick Dufficy and Joe Dusta and Jialiang Chin who played
well as a late inclusion into the team. Mason Fettell and Simon Tozer were
sourced from the Under 14’s and made a consistent, solid contribution.
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Consequently, the two strongest members of the team, Kody Graham and Alex
Watson, were rewarded by being selected in the State Squad to compete in
Adelaide at the National Championships later in the year.
Ten
teams competed over three days with the Alstonville team being defeated only
by River City Sharks and the Barracudas and these two teams subsequently
went on to play in the gold medal game. The games against these two teams
were particularly brutal and physical encounters with the Alstonville boys
succumbing to the more experienced opposition.
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The Alstonville girls
U16 team recently competed at the Queensland state titles. They started with
3 easy wins on Saturday against Mackay 11 - 1, Warriors (a Brisbane based
team) 19 - 2, and finally Moreton Bay College Brisbane team) 10 - 0. During
these games, Paige Fettell and Louise Napoli showed fine form at both ends
of the pool, scoring goals and denying the opposition goals.
Tegan Baker played
well, scoring several goals without a great deal of warm-up time. As can be
seen from the scores, Jess Eglington, the team goalie was also in great form
making several great saves. She carried this form into the Sunday games
against the finalists (All Hallows and Sunshine Coast) of the Qld Waterpolo
competition.
Unfortunately these
two teams proved to be too strong for the Alstonville girls, defeating them
10 - 0 and 10 - 4. The Brisbane teams were very wary of the potential of
Kelly Wilson, who had played in their Saturday competition and so marked her
extremely tightly. Despite this attention she impressed many spectators with
her team play.
Laura Hill, our
second goalkeeper, was a revelation in these games, playing in the field and
working so well in defense. The younger players Emma Huegill, Emma O’Grady
and Ashley Miller who have come into the team following some late
withdrawals, played well with the limited time they had in the water. They
all scored goals and improved their defense positional play immensely over
the tournament. Although the girls had only lost two games, similar to the
boys, due to the draw, the girls then played off for 5th to 8th
place. They won their game against Sunshine Coast’s second team
convincingly 15 - 1.
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Unfortunately against
the Barracudas, they let slip a lead which they had held for most of the
game to finish with a 4 all draw. This meant they finished equal 5th.
The team impressed the head coach from the QIS as being one of the few teams
at the tournament which thought about their play and played a team game.
This is a credit to the coach John Hair who spent many sessions with them
working on this aspect and their individual skills.
At the
conclusion of the tournament, Elke Jacobsen was named in the Queensland U16
train on squad. This was a well deserved honour as she had played great
waterpolo throughout the tournament both individually and as a team player.
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Ten Alstonville girls
along with coach John Hair and parents Peter Jacobsen, Lynn Hopkinson and
Marie Jeffery traveled to Sydney for the U16 Girls Club Championships held
at the Sutherland pool from Friday 17 to Sunday19 February. As our travel
arrangements were made late December/early January we were booked to fly
into on Thursday afternoon. Accommodation had been arranged at the Cronulla
YHA, which was a reality check for some, but cheaper accommodation was not
to be found. Peter had also arranged a 25 seat bus so that we were totally
mobile and independent. Earlier in the week, the draw for the tournament was
released; our first game was to be Friday night at 8.30pm! We could have
traveled down Friday am!
Once we recovered
from our initial dismay, we resigned ourselves to spending a relaxing day in
Cronulla. It was difficult, but we just had to do it! Cronulla turned on a
beautiful day at the beach and with afternoon shopping at the Miranda
complex, everyone was happy. It was an early dinner along the Cronulla
shopping mall and then off to the pool.
The comp had been
divided into four groups of 5 teams. Other teams in our group included
Cronulla A, Parramatta, SNB A and Sydney Uni B. Our first game was against
Parramatta which Alstonville won convincingly 17-0. The girls had finally
broken that first game loss/draw jinx! We were back next morning by 7am to
play against SNB A, where a win was crucial to getting into the
quarter-finals. The girls met the challenge to win 5-3.
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Alstonville’s biggest
challenge was Cronulla A against whom no team had yet scored. While we
didn’t manage a goal, the girls limited their opponents’ score to 11-0,
which caused some frustration among certain players on the Cronulla team.
Despite several of our team having colds and generally not feeling well,
they were playing quite good water polo.
A 12-1 win against
Sydney Uni B followed by an early Sunday 15-1 win over Blue Mountains put
our girls into the quarter-finals against St George for a midday game.
Alstonville worked hard and the score was 1-4 to St George. Paige Fettell
scored our only goal against St George’s wonder goalie Beth Loder; certainly
a feather in Paige’s cap. The tournament’s final was won by Cronulla A 7-3
against Uni NSW.
Then it was back on
the bus to the airport, juggling luggage, choosing dinner and counting the
minutes till we could get horizontal. It was midnight or so by the time most
of us were all tucked up in bed Sunday night, a welcome end to almost four
days in Sydney.
As a team the
Alstonville girls played extremely well and I believe Hairy was quite
pleased with their games and the level they achieved. As their parents, we
are naturally very proud of them. Thanks to Hairy, Peter and Lynn for your
organisational effort and company and well done girls!
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Qld U14 Boys
Club Championships, Townsville |
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The boys were selected
for the U14 State squad while Luke Mortimer was awarded most valuable
player. The following extract is from the Queensland Water Polo web site,
with thanks.
Boys Finals
The Gold
Medal was played between Barracudas and Alstonville and it was Alstonville
which shot out of the blocks in the first quarter with a 3 goal to nil
stanza. Alstonville scored 1 more goal in the second quarter and again shut
out Barracudas to lead 4-0.
The
third quarter saw no change to the score board by either team with both
teams not able to find the net with shots. The 4th Quarter however saw
Barracudas come out an score at 4.44 to bring the score back to 4-1 but then
Alstonville managed to regroup and hold Barracudas until 4 seconds remaining
to go when they scored again to make it 4-2 but it was too little to late
and Alstonville claimed the Boys Gold medal with a final score line of 4-2.
Goal
scorers Alstonville: Jack Bracey - 2, Luke Mortimer 1, Mason Fettell 1
Goal
scorers Barracudas: Ben Edwards 2
Referees: Craig Ball and Troy Park
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