Kocur preparing for U20 world in June would be my guess why Ryder is on that team. Marcell and Gray from UCLA will be impact players if they get time to play. I think continuity and having time to gel as a team is an issue with a roster of stars. But what a roster…
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Here are my predictions, often wrong, for this weekend’s Senior Nationals. There are a lot of really good players in this tournament.
Semifinals
Olympic Club over USA Junior by 1. This game could go either way. I don’t know why Johnny Hooper isn’t playing for the Olympic Club but they have the edge at goalie and more experience playing together.
NYAC over LAAC by 1. Another game that could go either way. I think the winner of this game will win the tournament. LAAC may have the more talented roster but NYAC has more experience.
Championship game
NYAC over Olympic Club by 2
3rd place game
LAAC over USA Junior by 2 or more
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Is it correct that Dennis Blyashov is on Cal’s roster for this tournament? Is he playing there next year?
Coverage has been decent but hosting the semi finals at the same time seems like a missed opportunity on viewership.
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Since Blyashov played his graduate senior year at Pepperdine in 2022, I surely hope that he can’t play at Cal in 2025 — although I wouldn’t put it past the current lawsuit driven eligibility changes!
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Blyashov played three seasons at Harvard and missed his senior season (Fall 2020) due to Covid. He then played one season for Pepperdine as a graduate student (2022).
Is he actually playing at Senior Nationals for Cal? He’s on the roster usawp put out and he has stats on 6-8. If he is, why would Cal suit up a player who never played for them and has no eligibility left?
yes very poor planning, lazy actually! would not have been that hard to shift them back to back…
Berkeley is not Cal. It’s a hodge podge of Bay Area people players from different schools
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Well Denes Varga was impressive! NYAC did not look that good, some good players seemed out of shape.
What a fantastic final. Looking fwd to see the Junior team at worlds improve on the bronze from last u20’s !!
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I disagree…I actually think they are not doing the Junior team any favors here. As soon as LAAC was up by 6- I knew the refs would take over the game. 4 five meters in one quarter? Please- its ridiculous. It doesn’t matter if this is a confidence boost for them- it is not polo, and anyone watching knows this. Besides this team does not look near as talented as the one two years ago and I also thought the Senior Nationals they won was handed to them. It actually makes me uninterested in watching any more senior nationals- especially because we all know what the outcome will be. The real final was yesterdays game of LAAC vs NYAC- now that was a fantastic final.
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No credit to the Junior team defense in h2 ? We will see how they end up at worlds but we can agree to disagree.
They held Varga to 1 goal vs the 5 he got in semis and the goalie switch made a BIG difference for the Juniors.
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Big win for the Junior team. Didn’t see the game, but I’m impressed they were able to knock off that loaded LAAC roster.
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SkipShot: Well i was there this weekend and in Romania with the team 2 years ago and Ryder, Liethcy, Schnieder, and at least one other were on that team 2 years ago and have improved significantly since then. I saw a completely different comeback than what you describe. Ben L became very effective in center in the end vs. Varga in some cases, the 20’s effort increased especially on shot blocking and team D, and goal keeping in the second half was excellent. Your post smells like sour grapes, blaming the refs for a 3 quarter comeback cmon.
I don’t mean to ruffle your Dad feathers- I get that both you and polofan want to defend your kids’ team. And I honestly wish you luck in the U20’s. I just don’t think handing the young guys a game will help them in Europe- let them stuggle against better, stronger, more experienced players not win off of an extraordinary number of kickouts and five meters- none of which they will get with the European refs. I am only interested in watching good polo and that is not what I got with the way the game was called. As I said, the game of LAAC vs NYAC was the real final and full of great polo.
It was not the real final. What a dumb comment.
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I actually like this team. Goalie play will be key. Kocur’s preparation/prep will be top-notch. This group has a lot of versatility, IQ, depth, and speed.
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@waterpolowednesdays broke down the kickout ratio for Junior National Team at Senior Nationals and it was 3-1. I am not sure how practical it is to have international ref’s at their games but its a good idea nonetheless.
Note: I am not saying this is why they won the finals however as I believe their defense did in H2.
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It’s not practical at all to pay for foreign refs. It would cost thousands of dollars to do so. If we can’t find enough capable refs for one tournament with a small number of games, then we’ve got much bigger problems. How about you run up the stats to USAWP and have them address any perceived bias (if it exists at all). We have a major ref shortage and it won’t help by undermining the ones we have and taking games away from them.