Ohio Squirrels Water Polo Club

Dayton Flyer Invitational
March 7 – 8, 2009

Ohio Squirrels v. University of Akron
Squirrels started off against a “Zippy” Akron squad who tried to find every which way to penetrate on the Ohio Squirrels’ defense. The Squirrels jumped on top quickly with a lead of 9-0 in the first 2 quarters and continued to use their defense to frustrate Akron’s outside shooting. While defense was their strong point, it was also the outside shooting and quick passing that put away the Akron Zips for good. Squirrels finished off Akron and started their first tournament of 2009 with a 24-2 win.



Ohio Squirrels v. Cleveland Water Polo Club
The masters team from the North, who recently had media attention and advertisement space on www.swimmeet.com during the Ohio Swimming and Diving State Meet, have been known for making strong showings at tournaments. Once again, the Ohio Squirrels relied on elite defense from Jason Wickes, Steve Coupland (goalie) and Mike Jones to take any offensive charge Cleveland had. On the offensive side, Squirrels that showed prowl included Ben Landrum, Jeff Carr & Sarah Sander. Taking a strong lead in the first quarter with an incredible sweep by Jason Wickes, a shot created momentum and kept Cleveland in check throughout the entire game. The Ohio Squirrels ended up winning 11-2 and finished the day 2-0.

Ohio Squirrels v. Chicago
Sunday came with an hour time change which took away an hour of sleep for the tired Squirrels. Their first game would be against a small Chicago team of 7 players. At first the thought of an easy win came to mind, but right away the Squirrels had to recognize their key players and minimize their attack. Doubling down in 2m and countering Chicago as much as possible, the Ohio Squirrels eventually pulled away. However, even with an 8 goal lead, Chicago seemed to never give up. It seemed that no matter how tired they looked, they continued to press on and set up an offense every time. Finally, the Ohio Squirrels were able to finish off Chicago with a 15-9 win, but compliments to the Chicago team for not giving up. This win put the Ohio Squirrels in the championship game against their other state rival, Central Ohio.

Ohio Squirrels v. Central Ohio
The Ohio Squirrels faced Central Ohio at 1:30pm on Sunday. Most of the players on both of these teams know each other and have played against or with each other for the majority of their collegiate club careers. Even better, a lot of them are friends. In the water, the Squirrels used a drop defense into hole from the weak side flat. This required a 5-6 meter shot to be taken and this is where goal keeper, Steve Coupland became incredible. In the first quarter, the Squirrels jumped on Central 5-1 with frustrating defense and strong outside shooting on the offensive end. Central, using their anticipation tactics and quick passing was able to crawl back to tie by half time 6-6. Going into the 3rd quarter, the Ohio Squirrels revamped their offense to try to create motion on the perimeter. Central strengthened their defense was able to make quick steals on the perimeter and get easy goals. Going into the fourth, a tired Squirrels team slowly drifted away and took a hard loss of 9-7. Something to take from this game was the idea that our perimeter passing wasn’t very strong which depleted our entire offense.

Squirrels would like to thank the Dayton Flyers for putting on a great tournament.