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Chehalem
team to
vie for championship |
The boys 14-and-under waterpolo team
qualifies for a tournament in St. Louis |
By B. Scott Anderson, Newberg
Graphic sports editor
E-mail Scott at banderson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
The Chehalem Water Polo club’s 14-and-under boys team will head to St.
Louis in November, thanks to victories over Mercer Island (Wash.) and Tualatin Hills, to
represent the Pacific Northwest zone at the annual age-group championship — the
Speedo Cup.
Volunteer coach T.J. Harney was ecstatic.
“They played great,” said Harney, a former Newberg water polo
player. “This is a good team and this is a big deal.”
Teams representing the 12 zones of United States Water Polo Inc. will vie for
the national championship. The Newberg team will face some of the country’s best
young teams and players. Alumni of this tournament have, in later years, gone on to play
on the United States national team and represent the country in Olympic competition.
Newberg High School water polo coach Jim McMaster said the local team is one
of the best he’s seen in 20 years of coaching at Newberg, leading the Tigers to
several state titles.
To reach the national championship, Chehalem needed to move past strong
competition from Tualatin Hills and Mercer Island. In the first contest, Chehalem’s
defense and a potent counterattack defeated Tualatin Hills, 12-3.
An hour later, the local squad faced a more physical opponent but used their
combined team speed and knowledge to prevail over the perennially tough Mercer Island,
16-11. Mercer Island represented the Pacific Northwest at the Speedo Cup in 2002, and
finished eighth in that year’s championship.
Following the win over Mercer Island, Harney said a key to the team’s success
was that “key players made key plays” and the role players “stepped up and
with that we outplayed them.”
The team is comprised of eighth-grader students Jordan Anderson, Casey Brown,
Nate Bush, Chase Hansen, Jeff Hockema and Cray Rogers; seventh-grade students Aaron Bishow
and Tyler Roy; and sixth-grade student Craig Cheney. |
|
From Sept. 24,
2003, Newberg Graphic
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