I was surprised to see a Canadian youth national team player competing in USA ODP?
Could be Dual Citizenship, like Johnny Hooper on the Men’s National Team.
It’s also worth noting, that the Coastal Blue and Red have an inaccurate finish in 2024. Coastal Blue beat the Red team in bracket play and finished fifth overall while Red finished ninth overall.
Nonetheless I also agree the charts are hard to read because a lot of those Blue kids moved up on Red in 2025 which says a lot about their personal growth especially when other talented athletes age up. On the flip side, some of those other kids on that Blue team either aged up to Youth Red or were moved to Red while being Cadet eligible.
We won’t be able to know what every coach goes through on athlete selection and what it means for every athlete’s development or their why for wanting to pursue this (be seen by colleges coaches, make an Olympic team, etc)
I applaud your attention to detail. Yes, I switched Blue and Red that year. When compiling the data I marked the higher placing team as Red and the lower as Blue rather than going by what the zone called the team. That decision was originally made in reconciling PSW’s decision to call their ‘B’ team this year PSW White.
I’m not sure what your point is. As girls age up in every zone they are replaced in some/many cases by girls from the Blue team the year before. This goes on in every zone, every year.
From what I can tell only 3 girls out of 14 (Piper, Smart and Yamamoto) were on last years blue team and this years red team. Unless I’m missing something?
Does anyone have the youth girls NTSC lists for this year and past years?
Here’s 2024’s list: 2024 Girls ODP National Championships Complete; NTSC Selections & Nick Johnson Award Winners Announced - USA Water Polo
1 Like
Previous year can be found at the bottom of the page ‘archive’
https://usawaterpolo.org/sports/2019/1/23/regional-national-championships.aspx
1 Like
2025 Girls NTSC Selections Announced
1 Like
Lots of names missing from Youth as they were invited to Junior Team:
| First | Last | Position | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte | Raisin | Attacker | SNT |
| Kamryn | Barone | Attacker | SNT |
| Lauren | Hett | Attacker | |
| Maci | Magee | Attacker | |
| Reece | Helsel | Attacker | |
| Rosalie | Hassett | Attacker | SNT |
| Katherine | O’Dea | Attacker | |
| Harper | Price | Attacker | |
| Kirra | Pantaleon | Attacker | SNT |
| Christina | Flynn | Attacker | |
| Claire | Minton | Attacker | |
| Amber | Nowaczek | Attacker | |
| Sydney | Lowell | Attacker | |
| Jojo | Walters | Attacker | |
| Elektra | Urbatsch | Attacker | |
| Ava | Knepper | Attacker | SNT |
| Meghan | Mcaninch | Attacker | |
| Kirra | Anderson | Attacker | |
| Tali | Stryker | Attacker | |
| Natalia | Szczerba | Attacker - L | |
| Sara | Naulty | Attacker - L | |
| Becca | Melanson | Attacker - L | |
| Lily | Palma | Center | SNT |
| Samantha | Hofley | Center | |
| Dania | Innis | Center | |
| Natasha | Kieckhafer | DEF | |
| Lucy | Haaland-Ford | DEF | SNT |
| Allison | Cohen | DEF | SNT |
| Quinn | Healy | DEF | SNT |
| Annabelle | Mundelius | DEF | |
| Julia | Bonaguidi | DEF | SNT |
| Keri | Glad | Goalie | |
| Talia | Fonseca | Goalie | |
| Orli | Cooper | Goalie | |
| Sophia | Bunnell | Goalie | |
| Christine | Carpenter | Goalie | SNT |
| Lauren | Steele | Goalie | SNT |
| Reagan | Weir | UTL | |
| Sofia | Umeda | UTL |
I assume it is similar to the boys:
- focusing on 2008/2009 due to the Worlds’ even years cycle
- 2007 Senior not selected
There are plenty of 2007 seniors on the NTSC Youth list.
Looking at the 2022-2024 (3 years) of Youth NTSC selections and where they ended up:
| Conference | School | 2022-24 Athlete count |
|---|---|---|
| MPSF | Stanford | 17 |
| MPSF | UCLA | 14 |
| MPSF | USC | 13 |
| MPSF | Cal | 11 |
| CWPA | Brown | 6 |
| MPSF | ASU | 6 |
| MPSF | Indiana | 5 |
| Big West | UC Irvine | 4 |
| Big West | UC Santa Barbara | 4 |
| Big West | Long Beach State | 3 |
| Big West | UC San Diego | 3 |
| CWPA | Michigan | 3 |
| CWPA | Harvard | 3 |
| CWPA | Princeton | 3 |
| MAAC | Villanova | 3 |
| Big West | UC Davis | 2 |
| CWPA | Bucknell | 2 |
| MPSF | San Jose State | 2 |
| GCC | Fresno State | 1 |
| GCC | Pacific | 1 |
| MAAC | Marist | 1 |
| MAAC | Iona | 1 |
| MAAC | Mount St. Mary’s | 1 |
| Big West | Hawai’i | 0 |
| Big West | Fullerton | 0 |
| Big West | Northridge | 0 |
| CWPA | St. Francis | 0 |
| CWPA | Mercyhurst | 0 |
| GCC | San Diego State | 0 |
| GCC | LMU | 0 |
| GCC | Santa Clara | 0 |
| GCC | Cal Baptist | 0 |
| MAAC | VMI | 0 |
| MAAC | Siena | 0 |
| MAAC | La Salle | 0 |
| MAAC | LIU | 0 |
| MAAC | Wagner | 0 |
Stanford is pulling almost 6 kids a year. Interesting that 0 NTSC kids chose LMU / SDSU / Hawaii.
I would have thought the 5th place teams would have been UCI or Michigan. Could also infer that ASU, Brown, Indiana, & UCSB are underperforming given their levels of higher domestic talent
Makes Hawaii’s win over UCLA and Cal this year and Hawaii & Fresno’s wins over USC and Stanford last year even more impressive.
I like the overall data. Not saying Hawaiis and Fresno States wins aren’t impressive from past two seasons, but their best players are almost all foreign. Brining in talent to win is different than developing diamonds in the rough to win
I’d say Brown is underperforming the most of the teams mentioned. Look at their schedule results this season… it’s super erratic, and not surprisingly a coaching change happened (surprised it happened now though, not later)
I think it’s easier to win at the big-4 when there’s a conveyer belt of top talent knocking at your door. I don’t blame LMU / SDSU / Hawaii / FS etc. for looking foreign when the top domestic kids won’t give them the time of day - do you?
Are you saying Hawaii is bringing in talent instead of developing talent? Who do you think is developing talent?
That was one of the things that caught my eye in the ODP results.
Boys:
Girls:
Development
Cadet
Youth
I haven’t looked into it, but the first question that came to mind was: Is girl’s flag football becoming a thing in Hawaii and siphoning off the top talent?
Any thoughts on the selections?
Congrats to the athletes who made it onto an ODP team and NTSC!
Tough to make an informed opinion on the black box that is NTSC evaluation. The ODP Championships are one of the few opportunities to see these top players compete against each other. Here are the team placements from the tournament and how many players were selected, multiple caveats here as teams had little to no practice time came together for a single weekend tournament.
Youth Outliers
- Coast Red - 4th place with only 3 selections
- CEN Blue - 7th place with only 1 selection
Cadet Outliers
- SPA Blue - 5th place with only 2 selections
- CST Blue - 6th place with only 1 selection
1 Like
Very interesting charts. The selection from the CA red and blue is also a riddle. If one represents A team and one B team and they select to NTSC from B team before selecting all the A team players. It might make sense if there are three stars in the same position and they put one of the them in the B team. Otherwise, hard to reconcile.
These #'s aren’t accurate for Cadet.
SPA had 11 selections not 9
CST had 9 selections not 6 and was blown out by PSW for 3rd and they got only 4 selections
CEN had 7 selections not 6. How does CEN get 7 selections with a Top finish of 8th and PSW gets 4 after blowing out CST RED for Bronze!!
1 Like