April 17, 2014
Coach John Vargas teamed up with Dr. Rich Kent of the University of Maine to write a one-of-a-kind book for water polo teams, players, and coaches. The Water Polo Team Notebook is based on the training logs, notebooks, and journals of Olympians and other world-class athletes. The book provides a wide variety of reflective writing activities that can optimize a team's performance by helping each player become a "student of the game." Below is a special excerpt from a game featuring Stanford and UCLA. Names have been changed to not include actual players.
Moment of the Game:
Our goalie Matt Cyr* blocks a point blank shot from UCLA late in the first half. UCLA's Murray received a kick-out pass from 2M and his defender had left him to help 2MD, giving Murray a clear lane to the goal. After a couple fakes, Murray tried to force one nearside and low past Cyr but was stuffed. Even though the game was still young and close at that point, this play set the tone for the game. The story of the game was not Stanford's offense, but their tough defense and this moment is a shining demonstration of the lockdown D. This block put life and energy not only in the entire Stanford team and coaches, but had the entire aquatic facility pumped up and energized. After seeing this play, I knew that there was no way Stanford was going to lose this game.
Final Analysis:
This is what a water polo game should look like. An 8-6 final score is the perfect balance between enough offense and exciting goals and good smart defense. A thriller from start to finish. Our goalie put himself on the map as one of, if not the best goalies in the country. UCLA came into game with only one loss and had just handed Stanford a huge 10-5 loss at the SoCal invitational the prior weekend. UCLA definitely expected a win in this game. For Stanford, this was a must win. After a disappointing finish in the SoCal invitational, Stanford needed this game to show the rest of MPSF that they are more than capable of knocking off a top team like UCLA. More than anything, this game showed that Stanford is a tough team mentality and have the character and maturity to forget about a tough tournament and focus on winning a big conference game. As expected, Stanford played very well in their home pool and established themselves as true title contenders. The game was televised adding to the excitement
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The Water Polo Team Notebook is available through their website http://www.waterpoloteamnotebook.com and Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/0986019151
