Members of the Estevan Sharks water polo club were in Surrey, B.C. this past weekend with the U16 Team Sask. team to start a new season of the Water Polo Canada National Championship League (NCL).
The U16 boys team featured six players from Estevan with Cameron Gillingham, Tristan Threinen, Logan Dalziel, Ethan Elliott, Lucas Dzeryk and Lyndon Sauder all suiting up for Team Sask. The U16 girls team consisted of two Estevan players in Josie Andrist and Alex Andrist.
On the boys side of the tournament, they worked hard all weekend to improve their defensive and offensive moves and came home with a 3-3 record.
Coach Ethan D’Souza from Regina commended the boys for a great weekend of growth and development, as three-quarters of the team are first year U16 players and three of the players are U14 members, so for them to pull of any wins bodes extremely well for this team over the next few years as this core group of players develops and grows.
In their first match of the weekend, Team Sask. faced Team Manitoba on Thursday night where they had a 15-8 win. Tristan Threinen and Ethan Elliott both scored a goal.
The next day the boys faced a very experienced B.C. team, the Westcoast Warriors, and the boys worked hard and kept the score close until half time but after that they couldn’t hold the Warriors off and they fell 18-12 with Threinen, Elliott and Cameron Gillingham all scoring a goal for Team Sask.
Later the boys faced the Edmonton Tsunami and bounced back in both defensive and offensive drive as they overtook Tsunami for a 24-9 win in which Cameron Gillingham had seven goals, Threinen found the back of the net four times and Lucas Dzeryk had one.
Saturday morning found the boys facing Calgary Wild where the boys played extremely well in what was probably their most unified team game for a 16-9 victory. Threinen, Gillingham and Sauder all scored goals. For their final game on Saturday, Team Sask. would face another of the B.C. teams, the Pacific Storm.
They once again held a close score until half time but unfortunately they could not hold the Storm off defensively and they lost 15-10.
The final game for the boys came Sunday afternoon where they played the Calgary Torpedoes. The Torpedoes had not lost a game on the weekend and so the boys knew they had a tough game ahead of them. The Torpedoes took the lead right from the start and fell 16-8, but not without the help of Dalziel and Gillingham both getting goals for the team.
The next action for U16 Team Sask boys will be in Calgary in early 2020.
Results for the U16 girls team were not immediately available.
