Today,17 players and their families ventured down to Falmouth, KY for the 4th year (I believe) of Lake Polo. This is a relaxed, family fun event that builds a competitive environment of polo under the warm sun in the beautiful outdoors.
The teamwork effort to put this together and have it go as awesome as it did today was phenomenal. Paul Miller and Ben Keefe made the Friday night trip down to setup the entire course (even though it took us forever) and we got a chance to watch the opening ceremonies with the Blevins Family. What a treat!
Morning came with early risings from my kids but both Ben and Paul were ready to go in putting on a great event. The caravan met at 9am (thanks to Johann Perera for being on point) and were at the farm by 10am.
Teams & Rules:
We divided the teams up into 3 x 5 player teams. 4 field and 1 goalie. We only had one true goalie there (Ron – from Indy) so we just rotated a field player in. We used inflatable goals so we all know how hard it is to score in that goal (although Stephen Ioas and Patrick Hudak seemed to find the back of the net the most).
Our rules consisted of the following:
1. First to 5 points wins – no win by 2
2. If excluded, you swim to any sideline rope and come right back in. This means if the rope is literally next to you when you get caught with an exclusion, you can just touch the rope and come on back in! This required the offense to very quick with passes and it sped up the game. Also, it allowed for more aggressive play knowing that the exclusion wasn’t too much of a disadvantage.
3. No offsides and no 5m direct shot after foul.
4. Grotesque shot rule – if you shoot the ball and it does not touch a defender, goalie or the catch (meaning it just misses EVERYTHING) you must swim to get that ball and your team is man down until you return. If the other team scores, it is even up.
5. If you are not playing or officiating, you are on kid watch :). (PS – all kids were awesome and well behaved.)
6. Wins/Losses? – while we tracked wins and losses for fun, we really just tracked goals scored. Your total score by the end of the day added up would be how we compared whether you were 1st, 2nd or 3rd.
We had Team Names: USA, Serbia & Croatia.
We also got to watch the tail end of the USA game which was great to see them in action.
Officials were primarily: Zoltan Hezer, Mike Jones, Johann Perea, Ben Keefe & Slava Agafonoff
Morning Session:
Each team played 4 games
Team Serbia led 16
Team Croatia – 2nd with 15
Team USA – 3rd with 14
Meanwhile, kids were floating around entire lake on floatilla, paddle board, kayak, rope swing – anything.
We broke for lunch and drinks.
Afternoon Session:
Each team played 4 games
Team Serbia took the gold with 35 points
Team Croatia – took bronze with 32 points
Team USA – 3rd with 30 points.
(scores may be off a bit)
Day ended with some Knockout Water Polo followed by a very quick and easy clean-up.
The teamwork was fantastic all day. The fact that we as a team are able to travel together out to the middle of nowhere and play water polo in a moss filled lake is awesome. My in-laws appreciated meeting everyone, well behaved people and good conversation. Overall, it was the perfect day.
Tune in next year as we will be adding a small kids water polo game (during adult game breaks).
Also thanks to our non-teammates from other clubs: Jacob, Ron & Brian. We welcome you again.
Thanks for a great day!
Mike