Non-swimmers beat champions

PUPILS of the Maryland RC School overcame their inability to swim and their school’s closure on June 6, to win the finals of the First Citizens’ Bank National Primary Schools Mini Polo League competition on July 1 at the Flying Fish Swimming Pool in St Clair.

The competition hosted by the Royhil Seals Water Polo Club began on May 27 and took place on consecutive Saturdays until the finals. The girls from Standards Three through Five competed against schools from the northern and eastern region and won the competition with a 12-8 final score against semi-finalists Dunross Preparatory School girls’ team. There was also a competition for boys’ mini polo teams, however, Maryland’s boys’ team unfortunately placed last.

According to First Citizens’ Bank communications officer in charge of major sporting events Michael Lopez, the victory was an upset no-one expected, as the Dunross School has strong swimmers and won the competition last year. “The final was nail-biting because while Maryland was leading in the first quarter, Dunross dominated the other two quarters and was on top in the scoring. Maryland only overthrew the champions in the final quarter when they fought to regain control of the game which they eventually won,” Lopez said.

He said it was a fantastic achievement on the part of the school as the sport was usually dominated by more “affluent schools.” Lopez pointed out that it was only through the persistence of Royhil’s club president Ryan Smith, vice president Wendy Rodriguez, and Hayden Tidd a teacher at Maryland, that the school’s principal Sandra Bernard allowed the team to compete.

The mini polo competition started last year and many schools were invited to enter by Smith and Rodriguez, in an effort to encourage national exposure of the sport. Maryland RC was the most responsive but the group of girls who formed the team did not know how to swim and up to that point had never seen a swimming pool.

Smith was able to show Tidd the basics of the game and he in turn coached the girls in physical exercises. The team obtained third place in last year’s competition behind Bishop’s Anstey Junior School and the winners Dunross Preparatory.

It was only at the beginning of this year Maryland’s girl water polo team began to learn to swim. Lisa Jameson a parent of one of the team members said Tidd took the girls to the YMCA swimming facilities in Port-of-Spain on Fridays during the school’s lunch break. The girls were able to learn basic swimming techniques while continuing mini polo training on the school’s compound everyday after classes ended.

Jameson’s daughter Le-Shawn said, “It felt wonderful to win because we were able to beat well established teams.”

When asked whether the team will continue to compete in the competition, the elder Jameson said she was unsure as some of the girls went on to secondary school as they wrote the SEA exams in April. The team may also be disbanded as students may be placed at different schools according to the Ministry of Education.

Mini polo follows the same rules and techniques as its parent sport water polo. The only difference is that mini polo players are allowed to walk on the pools’ surface and/or swim in contrast to water polo where players are only allowed to tread water and/or swim.

The winners were celebrated at a prize- giving ceremony held at the Hasely Crawford Stadium VIP lounge, Port-of-Spain on Wednesday evening where they received their certificates, medals and trophies.