Youth Sports: Aug. 2, 2023: Water polo, flag football and more

• WATER POLO

The Inland Northwest Kroc Water Polo club (based at the Salvation Army Kroc Center) had two teams go down to the National Water Polo Junior Olympics tournament in Dallas this past weekend. Last year the womens 18U team placed 3rd in the gold division in their first trip to a Junior Olympics event. This year, the womens team advanced to the upper platinum division along with 25 other teams from across the country. In their first game, they easily beat a Texas team (the Longhorns) 23-4. They followed this with a tough game with the Storm Blue. While they came close to tying the game at the end, they lost by a score of 10-9. In their 3 rd game of the day, the Kroc club easily outscored St. Charles, coasting to a 16-3 win. By winning two of the three games, they moved up to the Platinum division. The next day, the team played Florida East coast, pulling out a good lead early in the game and then playing to a 15-9 victory. They followed that up with highly defensive game against an Alama team where goals were difficult to find, eventually scoring nine goals to the Alamo’s five.

The following day, the girls squad played one of the best teams in the tournament – the Cypress Fairbanks Sharks out of Houston. The Sharks had strength across the board, including a very strong hole set and an excellent driving attack. The Cypress team also implemented a strong pressing defense which resulted in a 17-6 loss for the Kroc squad. The Kroc team later played a Route 66 team in another close match, eventually swimming to a 9-7 win. The victory against the Route 66 team earned them a slot in the semifinals for the last day of the tournament.

In the semifinals, the girls varied their defense, looking for ways to shut down a strong Orlando United team. The Orlando team was quick on counter-attacks and had an all-around strong team, able to shoot consistently from the outside and also score from the set position if it wasn’t double-teamed. The Orlando team eventually ground out a 9-5 win, putting the Kroc squad in the third/fourth place game. The team went in with high hopes for a medal and kept the score close against a highly regarded Norco team out of California. In probably the hardest fought game of the tournament for the CDA squad, the team fell behind early, then tied it up 6-6 at half-time, but lost ground in the third quarter enroute to a final score of 11-9 and a 4 th place finish.

Gianna Gonzalez was the team’s highest scorer, averaging over five goals per game while only having recently finished her freshman year. Maren Hover was the team’s second highest scorer, with 3-4 goals/game. Many of her goals were earned on five penalty shots in which she scored on almost every shot that she attempted. Simone Gonzalez led the defensive effort, covering hole defense with support from Jillian Provost who was playing with a sprained finger for most of the tournament. Alena Gonzalez provided the majority of the goalie play, often keeping the team in contention against fast breaks and other outside shot opportunities.

The Coeur d’Alene club has the challenge of playing in a small community — some teams such as Orlando United have hundreds of players on their teams to draw from. The Cd’A team currently has about 35 players total. The Kroc team also had a number of young players (ages 14-17) playing against teams of almost all 17-18 year olds. Even with this, there wasn’t much difference in their abilities vs the top 3 teams — a few goals here and there could have made a big difference in the outcome of some of the games.

The boys squad also had a great tournament for their first time out to the National Junior Olympics. The team has been playing together for a number of years, but had focused on playing teams from the Northwest (Idaho, Oregon and Washington).

This was their first time the boys played at this level and the team didn’t know what to expect as far as the level of competition. However, not only did the boys make it into the upper level platinum group, they placed 14th out of 29 teams. 

The boys started out strong the first day, winning two out of their first three games (14-11 vs Aquatex, 13-15 vs Marko Polo and 15-10 vs Virginia Beach). The team had a tough second day, dropping a close game against the Ohio Sea Monsters (10-8) and struggling against a very talented Missouri Jungle Cat team (16-3). The team regrouped the next day and ground out wins against Murray Utah (12-10) and easily outpacing Aquatex 18-7. In their final game, the team had to play their most difficult opponent – Jungle Cat. They played much better and kept the game close in the first half, but ultimately were outscored 14-8.

The boys were impressed with the level of play of the top teams and came away realizing more of what it takes to get to the next level. A couple players of note — Isaac Thorpe was one of the highest scoring players of the tournament - scoring nine goals in one game and five goals in another game the same day. He also scored many other goals throughout the tournament.  Thorpe has an extremely fast and aggressive driving ability and could sometimes slip past multiple defenders in looking to score.

Most players are happy to score 1 or 2 goals in a game. Quade Castaneda also did an excellent job in hole set, controlling the position and scoring multiple times per game and forcing other clubs to double team him. Quade also had one of the highlight shots of the tournament, reaching out with his foot to flip the ball to his hand and then knocking the ball into the goal while the defender and goalie were both collapsing on him. Mason Curry did a journeyman’s work in knocking away dozens of shots throughout the tournament and also had a stand out goal when he realized the other goalie was out of position and immediately threw a full court skip shot into the opposing goal. Travis Strimback led the defense in excellent job of covering the hole set for the team. A variety of other players contributed goals and assists throughout the games.

COEUR d'ALENE RECREATION

• FALL SOCCER

The City of Coeur d’Alene Recreation Department announces registration for youth fall soccer for all boys and girls GRADES K (or age 5) – 8th Grade.

Registration will be held July 31 – August 11. Registration can be done online at www.teamsideline.com/CDAID or in person at the office which is located at 710 Mullan Avenue in the lower level of Coeur d’Alene City Hall.

The league will start in mid-September and runs through the end of October.

Registration fees are $25 for Coeur d’Alene city residents and $35 for non-city residents.

• FLAG FOOTBALL

Registration for fall flag football for 2nd and 3 d graders will take place Aug. 1-25. Practices and games begin after Labor Day. Cost is $25 for city residents and $35 for non-residents. Registration can be done online www.teamsideline.com/CDAID or in person at the office which is located at 710 Mullan Avenue in the lower level of Coeur d’Alene City Hall.

Submit items for youth and non-varsity high school sports by noon Tuesday for publication Wednesday. Email stories and photos (in .jpg format) to sports@cdapress.com.

Information: 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019.