Anyone else noticed that they eliminated the 5-8 v 9-12 game in the 12u girls bracket? So by the end of day 2 the best you can do is 9th unless you win the bracket. But don’t worry they left it in for the 12u boys in Session 2. The photo is comparing 12u girls day 3 schedule of 2025 vs 26
You can thank USA Water Polo for that. The 48-team JO bracket is a work of art. USA Water polo taking 52 12uG teams but not being willing to pay for the extra pool rental and staffing necessary to provide those teams with the same play-in ability built into the 48-team bracket means something had to get cut.
USA Water Polo should have figured out who the top 48 teams were and directed the non-qualifiers to Session 3 in Texas.
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It’s a good way for the game to shrink when you start losing kids due to this type of behavior. USAWP should care about that.
San Diego! Where in the world are you?!
16u:
L25-CLUB DAYGO: 4 W30-NORCO: 9
Was Daygo just those 2 girls that went to Worlds? WTH?! 1st in PSW…
They will have no group of their own next year. Will end up riders in some Santa Barbara or Mission or something and will again be kicked off orbit. I smell 2 years of no San Diego zone anywhere near podium.
A little further research of Patriot. 10U coed today. 26-1 and 21-0. 10U coed!! It must start at the top with them.
I’m gonna repeat myself.. we don’t know if those teams slowed down and stopped countering. Did someone here watch the 10u games at Beckman? Patriot 10u does that on the regular but they usually slow down in the second half and set up and run plays.
Edit/Addition: The gap between the top 4 teams and teams 16-20 in any age group is around 10-12 goals. The gap between top seeds and 45-48 seeds would then logically be around 20-25 goals…
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That is true. I apologize you’re right.
It’s just crazy seeing all these big clubs do this at this age.
I want to see our sport grow and when I hear stories about what all these clubs decided to do on day one, it reminds me why Mercy rules exist in your sports.
But when you see the same eight Water Polo programs doing it at 10 and 12 and 14 like WPops Is saying, you begin to wonder why those eight clubs at every level.
It doesn’t matter if you are a San Clemente or Patriot or Newport or Back Bay or Diablo, they should institute a rule. All of them took it too far today
14U below are just kids. Save the blowouts for the high schoolers.
Edit: this was a reply to a post that’s now gone.
That’s what happens when the seeding and skill level on Day 1 of JOs is so spread out… It’s the reason Futures has strict divisions. I’m around a lot of those clubs and a lot of them have decided to do different tournaments year round to avoid those type of games, but you cannot avoid them at JOs.
Edit 2: I’ll propose a completely different solution… How about less teams get JO invites? Then these early games won’t be blowouts… actually, yes they will, look ar Futures Super Finals.
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I believe a tiebreaker is Point differentials. I could have sworn I had a daughter on a team who got moved down a couple years back in a tiebreaker and it came down to point differential. You can’t control how another team plays an opponent but you can control your outcome, and unfortunately that means running up the points, “just in case” that differential comes into play later in the tournament. Teams that know this and may have been on the losing side of a tiebreaker one time, won’t let that happen again. The coaches don’t like doing it, the players don’t like it and neither do the parents. I may be wrong in this, but if I am then i agree with the majority and something needs to change.
I’m around a lot of those clubs and a lot of them have decided to do different tournaments year round to avoid those type of games, but you cannot avoid them at JOs.
Rather good that teams cannot avoid it everywhere.
It is exactly that whooping in early (10u) JO (and San Diego tournament, which is like a mini JO) that allowed my kid to understand that “Happy Go Lucky” social club team was not a good match. Switched to a club full of go-getter kids and my kid is a ton happier.
All that handwringing about goal differential is from perspective of emotion of down team… From perspective of team aiming at podium slowing down is just teaching bad habits that will never help at higher level. It is really really bad to teach these kids to slow down - disrespectful to the kid who put in extra hours training at bounce net, endured privates, etc.
For teams with deep bench, you dial down the line to get lines that will not play in other games to get some water time to justify the tournament fees. That may have the effect limiting point diff. But slowing down kids with stuff like “minimum of 5 passes” royally messes with the tuned skill of converting super fast on steal on intercept.
To quote great philosopher (fictional soviet general from James Bond): “The West is Decadent and Weak. They have no stomach for our atomic reprisal!”
Why does it matter to you team if your team looses by 20 or by 30? Irrelevant at all.
It should really metter to your team if opposition was pulling their punches, not showing the excellence in execution. That absolutely sucks, as you learn nothing besides “they were beating us with their right hand behind their back”. Why? That’s demeaning.
Let all kids run at the max speed they can. That’s sports.
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I don’t believe JO has such a tiebreaker. You win you move on day 1.
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The most disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen happen at a JOs is when a team was passing with their off-hand in front of the other team’s goal, defense wasn’t at the skill level to even come back to 2m and the offense dumped the ball. They did that for 2 quarters straight. Just score at that point.
908 and Patriot has no chance against Newport. Nobody does this year. Unless things changed since San Diego, Patriot doesn’t have much of a bench. 908 lost their best attacker and defender. They carried 1-2 that tourney. Did they bring more players up from B?
They are both playing for 2nd at best.
I will direct you to USA Water Polo’s rules appendix D.
Goaldifferential is one of the tiebreakers and gets used every year in 3-team groups when ties arise.
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I stand corrected
If goal differential is a real thing, then all these clubs today they decided to go for 20 goal wins are just following the USA water polo example
Can I can I reframe my argument that instead of being mad at these eight clubs, I’m going to be angry at USA Water Polo for not instituting a mercy rule? Is that a fair compromise cause you won me over a little bit and changed my mind somewhat. I still don’t think it’s a good example.
What clubs should never do is through the whole we’ll play with our non-dominant hand thing. Or one year I remember a team decided to only play five of their six players for the fourth quarter. And they still scored.
That level of humiliation is not needed Nobody should be switching hands.
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What a swing on this thread in 8-10 hours…
From “GET THEM! THEY ARE EVIL! THIS IS AN ABOMINATION!”
To: “Eh…not terrible…gotta keep your studs sharp for later games…may need goals difference at some point…”
Yall wild…
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The thing that changed me a little bit was seeing someone post the rule. I didn’t know that goal differential mattered at junior Olympics.
That rule should be changed and they should just do a mercy rules and a different tiebreaker, but that should be a separate thread.
If people can’t change their minds, then what’s the point of having a forum?
I still think it’s a bad look for San Clemente and Stanford and Patriot and all those clubs to dunk on a Midwest or PSW team. There has to be a way to help all sides
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14U and 16U was not a three team division so this holds no water. Sure 10U coed was. But if you look at the bracket you can also see this argument has no merit. considering Patriot beat a team by 25 or so that then beat the third team in the bracket, before throttling that team as well. Nice to defend it though as a tiebreaker mechanism.
Tuebreakers are not a thing on day one in 14U and 16U.