So.... Polo Boy's senior year is almost over. The post-season goes District Championships. Then Regionals. Then States.
At districts last week we took a surprise(-ish) loss in the final so went into regionals this weekend as second seed from our district. Which meant that we'd face the top seed in the region at the semi-final stage rather than final so probably end up with a lower seeding for States and thus draw a harder opponent from the other region in our first game. but that's still ok
It couldn't have gone worse. An easy victory on Friday night over the 3rd seed from the other district in our region ensured our place at the State Championship tournament....... but in the dying seconds our most excellent goalie took a ball to the face and is out. Probably for good. It's unclear if he has a concussion, but he's had a few (not all from Water polo) and he was really unsteady for a long time after the game.
Our back-up goalie is seriously sick and was scratched from the post season roster. We went without a back-up. Asking for trouble. Coach called back-up to see if he was available for semis and final or 3/4 game today. He said no to first game maybe to second. Didn't make it.
Long and short .........PoloBoy stepped up and played Goalie. He was great -made some really good saves. But not good enough, especially when one of our main defenders -him- was missing from the field
So we're going to States in two weeks to defend our title, but we're going ats the bottom seed from the region so will play the top seed from the other region in our first game and will likely end up in the losers bracket playing for 5th-8th. Not too shabby but still a disappointing end to the highschool years.
The current thought is to find a B or C-line player we can train up in two weeks so we can get poloboy back in the field where he belongs. (They have to be on the post-season roster already).
But back to poloboy -he was AWESOME.
.....and in unrelated to the goalie thing news... got an honorable mention in the All season all region team selections (they pick a first and second "dream team" out of all16 teams, then add a couple of honorable mentions.
/proud mama