Oct. 22, 2013
The winner of the S & R Sport Athlete of the Month for October 2013 is Ciara Sadaka of Pace Academy and the APS Knights in Atlanta, Georgia. To nominate an athlete you think is worthy email media@usawaterpolo.org. For winning, Ciara will receive a $50 gift certificate to SRSport.com. Here is the nomination submitted for Ciara.
Ciara began the Georgia High School water polo season on August 7, 2013 with the first meeting for the Pace Academy Team in Atlanta and then attended the GHSWPA Clinic led by Merrill Moses. She previously had a wonderful 2012-2013 season playing for not only Pace Academy, but also a girl’s league team made up of girls from schools that did not have enough players to make a girls team. After being selected as a Freshman for the 2012 Georgia High School All- State Girls First Team, she was inspired to play year-round and began searching for opportunities that did not exist in Georgia. She signed-up for Holiday Camp in Orlando, Florida and encouraged other girls to do the same. On the drive to Orlando, she and members of the GHSWPA All-State Team stopped in Gainesville for a “pep-talk” from UF Women’s Coach Katie Larsen, a Pace Academy Graduate who played varsity water polo in college. Ciara was hooked after the Orlando trip and wanted more coaching from experienced coaches. She contacted Erika Figge at USAWP to see if it was not too late to sign up for ODP the following weekend in Boca Raton. After two ODP practices in Florida and a trip to the East-West Regionals in Cleveland, Ohio, it was clear that water polo was her life’s passion. Luckily Andy Neff, from the Dynamo Water Polo Club, had volunteered to take a girls team to the SEZ JO Qualifier in May and Ciara began practicing with the Dynamo Masters Team at their three weekly practices and scrimmaging with the Emory University women’s team every Sunday afternoon. She still had no year round Club Team or coach, but would search for coaching and an opportunity to play whenever she could.
It paid off well for her in this 2013 GHSWPA season as the starting Center Defender for the Pace Academy boy’s team finishing 12th in the state. Without a girl’s team to play on, she contacted Stu Sheldon of the Atlanta Public School Team to ask if she could get in the water for practice and coaching until the GHSWPA decided what to do with the handful of girl’s who wanted to play in the girl’s league but did not have a team on which to play. Stu and fellow coaches Monica Szalma and Robin Smith welcomed her and immediately started working on her skills and integrating her into their inexperienced team of Freshman and Sophomore girls. Ciara would attend two practices at two different pools on most days while taking 4 Honors courses and maintaining an A average. Soon after beginning practice with APS, she started at Center Defender for the APS “A” Boy’s team at the Dynamo PowerBar Cup. Ciara remained with the APS Girl’s team for the remainder of the season, recruiting two new players from Pace Academy and inviting every girl who did not play on another girl’s team to join as well. APS Girls won the 3rd place game at the GHSWPA championships on October 12. Ciara had 72 total goals on the season for the APS Girls and 6 for Pace Academy and was awarded GHSWPA Girls Defensive Player of the Year. Now the season is over and as she waits for ODP to start in December, she will continue to practice with the Dynamo Masters Team and scrimmage whenever she is asked! Her three wishes for the future are:
- To play on a year round club team with an experienced water polo coach
- To play in the 2014 USAWP JOs next year in the 16U Girls Division
- To play on a sanctioned high school water polo team and be recruited by a D1 school.
