(ROCKWALL-April 24, 2013) This year seemed to be the breakout year that could send one, if not both boys and girl’s high school teams to the state tournament. All that was needed was for the teams to play up to their seeding.
The Rockwall High School girls entered the tournament with a #4 seed and the boys with a #2 seed. The top four places in the North Texas Regional tournament advance to play in the state tournament.
“Expectations were very high for these kids,” said assistant coach Jim Hummingbird. “They played hard to earn those seeds and found two completely different ways to lose momentum.”
The RHS Girls started the tournament with an 8-2 loss to #5 Southlake Carroll. They rebounded with a 16-2 romp over Lake Highlands before finishing the double elimination tournament with an 8-4 loss to Denton Guyer.
“We beat Southlake 10-5 just 2 weeks ago. We didn’t have that intensity all tournament long.”
The loss to Guyer put them out of the tournament and into a 5th place finish.
The RHS Boys looked poised to make the cut. They beat Colleyville Heritage 10-4 to start, then played an overtime thriller knocking off Denton Ryan 9-8 to advance to the finals and a guaranteed invite to the state tournament. But while the players were celebrating, a protest was filed on the game. After a review by the competition committee, it was determined the referee had made an error. The game was to be replayed back to the time of the infraction midway thru the second quarter with Denton Ryan leading 3-2. The boys ended up in an 8-5 loss in the replayed game. The loss put them into the loser’s bracket where they needed one win to make the 3rd place game. They were beat by Denton High School 8-3 and ended up in a 5th place finish.
“After the kids got back in to replay Denton Ryan, you could see their emotional tanks were on empty. They just celebrated making the finals and all of the sudden, they were being ousted,” said coach Hummingbird. “It hurt to see the kids put in this situation so I can’t imagine what they are feeling. I know it’s something we will work with them to get through. The protest was the right thing, I just wish there was a better system to handle it. We are just as proud of these kids as we would be had they won it all.”
The Rockwall HS teams had seven players make the North Texas All Region team. For the girls, Raena Eldridge made 1st team, Jordan Hummingbird, 2nd team and Summer Scown 3rd team. For the boys, Alex Rodriguez and Evan Scown made 1st team, Patrick Garcia made 2nd team and Brock Snyder made 3rd team. Congratulations to these athletes for a wonderful season.
Submitted by Jim Hummingbird, president, Rockwall Water Polo Club.
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