Jungle Cat Pride

Most days, I am proud of Jungle Cat Water Polo. Today, I am more proud than usual.

In the third place game of the Kuppa Tournament, JCWP 4 played Flyers A, a team comprised of the best players from two top ten schools. After three quarters of substituting our stronger and weaker players evenly, JCWP 4 trailed Flyers A 4 - 9. As Coach Penilla suggested, the game was already a "victory" at that point. But playing only their best six players for the remainder of the game, JCWP 4 made a rousing comeback, tying the score 9 - 9 before giving up a late goal and losing by one.

Here's the kicker: Since we split into four balanced teams for the Kuppa Tournament, each of our teams had one fourth of our top-end talent. So when playing one fourth of our club's best against another club's best, we dominated the one quarter of play, 5 - 1.

This speaks to the strength of our club better than anything I could write. Had we put our best teams together at the Varsity and JV levels, we would not have gotten nearly as much out of this winter's games. I am pleased with our fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth place finishes, knowing that we sacrificed tangible success for opportunities to develop as players and teammates. Thank you for understanding.

And thank all of you, players and coaches, for what you do to make Jungle Cat Water Polo the best club in town.

Coach Baud