Collegiate men’s water polo players don’t receive the glamour of a draft or get the opportunity to sign six-figure paychecks when moving up to the next competitive level.
The sport doesn’t yet have the fan base for such luxury. Almost all of the talent comes from the collegiate ranks, so when NCAA restrictions that eliminated college athletes’ eligibility to play in scored club games fell into place in 1988, the professional league lost a lot of its players.
If college talent went on to compete at all, it was after their years in college programs, and many went on to play for the more elite club teams located around the Mediterranean rather than for teams in the United States.
So in 2015, USA Water Polo founded a semi-professional association called the National League that, in accordance with the NCAA, lifted restrictions for college athletes and allowed them to participate without risking their NCAA eligibility.
This past weekend was its championship tournament, and Bruins of all levels – four current ones and even more alumni – competed against each other.
The nine that played in the championship game between New York Athletic Club and USA Blue were particularly impactful, accounting for 40 percent of the game’s scoring.
The senior players of the 2015 NCAA champion men’s team, Danny McClintick and Anthony Daboub, played together again on NYAC, and reunited with former UCLA teammates Josh Samuels, Chris Wendt, Lucas Reynolds and Griffin White.
Junior Chancellor Ramirez and sophomores Max Irving and Alex Roelse suited up against them for USA Blue. Roelse played serious minutes each game, totaling eight goals over the weekend.
Roelse has turned into a water polo marvel since he started training with the men’s senior national team. The USA Water Polo announcers said this weekend that even the National League playoff games are an easy workout for him compared to what he’s been going through in preparation for the upcoming Rio Olympics.
Not only did he get to play his old UCLA teammates, but Roelse also played against some of his new national team teammates in the finals, like Stanford standouts Tony Azevedo and Bret Bonanni.
Though USA Blue had seven senior national team members, the experience that the more veteran NYAC brought to the table was too much to overcome.
Daboub opened up the scoring for NYAC against USA Blue Sunday afternoon, and the team never looked back, winning 13-7. Samuels and Azevedo each added a goal of their own before Roelse and Ramirez put USA Blue on the board near the end of the first quarter.
Samuels and McClintick tacked on two more at the beginning of the second quarter as USA Blue’s defense started to deteriorate. Though Irving won the starting sprint, Roelse was excluded twice, and he would go on to get kicked out of the game when he received his third exclusion in the fourth, a quarter when Ramirez was excluded twice as well.
USA Blue’s defense played a large part in getting them to the finals in the first place. They held Olympic Club, a team that featured three-time All-American and UCLA alumnus Paul Reynolds, and USA Red to less than 10 goals.
Reynolds had one of the more impressive weekends for a UCLA alumnus. He scored five goals on five attempts in his first game and five more over the course of the next two, tying or leading his team in scoring each game.
But in addition to showcasing the big names of the sport, like Reynolds and members of USA Blue and NYAC, USA Water Polo National League also serves to introduce upcoming talent to higher levels of water polo.
Freshman goalie Alex Wolf was the backup keeper to junior Garrett Danner throughout the 2015 season, but showed quick hands all weekend.
He compiled 10 saves against the fourth-seeded Alumni team where he outperformed former UCLA and Olympic team goalie Chay Lapin, 12 saves against Repubblica and nine saves in the fifth-place game on Sunday.
Wolf also had more saves – at 81 – and averaged more saves per game – with 8.1 – than any other goalie throughout the entire season, including two-time starting Team USA goalie Merrill Moses, USC goalie McQuin Baron and UCLA women’s water polo coach Brandon Brooks.
However, Brooks and many other goalies missed a number of games for various reasons. Most weekends Brooks was busy coaching his women’s team to a third-place conference finish and a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
USA Water Polo has the weekend’s full results and stats.