Two golds and one silver. Not a bad haul for one weekend in Saskatoon.
The Estevan Sharks Water Polo club sent two full teams, the Atom Sharks and the Bantam Girl Sharks, to the provincial tournament in the Hub City. They also had two boys join the EsteToon team, the combined Estevan and Saskatoon team, to add to the fun and success.
Despite being the smallest club in terms of membership at the tourney, the Estevan swimmers couldn’t be topped, carrying home gold medals in the Atom and Bantam Girls competition, while the EsteToon team captured the silver.
“This was huge for our club as we are the smallest in the province and for us to win was very exciting,” said Melanie Dzeryk, spokeswoman for the Sharks after they recorded their unprecedented feats.
In the Atom division, the team came out of round robin play with one win and a tie coupled with one loss, which put them in third seed going into the finals.
“They regrouped on Sunday and found their groove and came away with a huge win against the Weyburn Hurricanes in the semi-finals and then with the great defensive plays of Cameron Gillingham and Logan Dalziel, they flew into the lead with eight goals from Lucas Dzeryk and won the gold against the Saskatoon Pirates, 9-6,” said Dzeryk.
Coaches Mona Hack and David Dzeryk said they were very proud of the team since six of the eight players were in their first year of competition. This bodes well for the future, they suggested.
On the female side, in the bantam division, the Sharks dominated throughout the entire tournament. They emerged from the first day of play with three straight wins and advanced directly to the semi-finals against the Hurricanes where they recorded an impressive 15-8 victory. That win took them to the gold medal game. The challenge was made even more difficult as they had to fight off exhaustion due to the fact they were short in numbers and were forced to play without substitutions against the Regina Armadas.
However, it appeared as if they refused to use exhaustion as any kind of reason to slow their pace as they outlasted the Regina team 10-4 with Teaghan Hack leading the charge with several goals. This team that has gone undefeated in tournament play this year, is now casting their eyes toward the second half of the season with their coach Kim Marshall.
Logan Marshall and Matthew Getschel, members of the EsteToon squad played well and helped the squad advance to the second round of action by winning one and losing once in the first round of play. They then defeated the Hurricanes 14-10 in the semi-final but came up short against the Armadas by a 12-6 count in the gold medal game. Getschel started in goal for all the games and did a remarkable job of keeping the opposing players off the score sheet on several occasions.
The Sharks are now slated to take a brief Christmas season break but will begin workouts again in January and will return to regular practice and tournament play early in the new year.
