Jessen and his team had a fantastic water polo season! It's hard to believe it's over so soon but this weekend at Regional Championships was truly a culmination of their hard work over the last few weeks. The Vikings came into the tournament seeded in 5th place and ended up finishing 3rd overall!

Friday started out rough....none of the guys seemed like themselves and the plays just weren't there. They ended up losing to Sycamore and I know their spirits were pretty low. Their coach wasn't happy either and told them that they played like quitters and that coming in to Saturday they had better "Man-Up".

I think this is exactly what they needed.

Saturday was an incredible day. The first game against Glen Oak started at 9am and the Vikes, clearly recovered from whatever fog surrounded them the day before, slaughtered them. Next up at 11am was a match up against Sycamore again and this time they were ready to bring the hammer down. I think Sycamore must have been walking into that game completely unprepared and thinking they had it in the bag but they couldn't have been more wrong. The Vikings brought it and were triumphant in ending Sycamore's season right there! Then the guys got a break for a few hours and went out to a restaurant for lunch and to rest up for the next game.

Senior Starters Mohawks!!!

At 4pm they played Mason (who was ranked 3rd coming into the competition) and it was, by far, the hardest fought and most exciting game I've seen them play to date. The Vikings hung in there and ran neck-in-neck with Mason the entire game and were tied 4-4 at the bottom of the fourth period. I was fearful we'd end up going into overtime. I knew our boys were exhausted - this was their third game of the day and Jessen and the other varsity starters played all four periods of each game! Then, during the last 45 seconds of play, the Vikes scored and held their lead for the win 5-4! AWESOME!




That left them with one more game to determine who was second seed for State. This match up against Milford, the defending state champions from last year, and a team we have never beat. Milford also boasts one of the best water polo players in the country. This kid is a senior, 6'11", 220lbs (seriously - what the hell are they feeding this kid!). He is like All National, All Ohio and is being recruited by USC, UCLA, Pepperdine, etc. for full ride scholarships to play water polo. Anyhow, this kid plays Hole Set and for the majority of the game, the Vikes coach had Jessen and another guy from our team guarding him. This kid's arms are so long that it's not difficult for him to reach over a normal sized kid and get the ball. Jessen is 6'1" and 155lbs on a good day, so I thought it made a lot of sense to have two of our guys guarding gigantor.

Ultimately though, it just wasn't enough. The Vikings fought hard on defense and certainly didn't give the game away but we just couldn't get enough shots in and with a little over a minute left in play, the coach called time out and pulled the starters from the water and gave the non-starting seniors the last few moments of play.

Now, I don't want to seem overly emotional here or anything but that was probably one of the most touching moments in my son's athletic career. Their coach knew it was over and that this was going to be the last game these seven seniors were going to play together. When the boys emerged from the pool, the parents and Viking fans in the stands gave them a standing ovation and as they walked on the pool deck, the coach shook their hand, congratulated them on a good fight, and gave them a hug.

Jessen was very disappointed but he couldn't help but be proud of the team, their season, not to mention their incredible day. I know he was very sad knowing that he won't play water polo again with this team and it's so difficult to help your kid understand that endings are painful but there is always something amazing waiting in the future.

The team shirts this year has the motto written on the back that says "Meet both victory and defeat like gentleman", and that is exactly what they did.