Calvert Hall - 2015 MIAA Champions

October 26 - Two high school championships were decided this past weekend in the states of Maryland and Ohio. In Maryland it was the MIAA boy's prep championship where Calvert Hall topped Loyola Blakefield 11-8. In Ohio, the girl's high school state championship took place with Upper Arlington defeating Sycamore 11-6 in the final. Ohio will crown their boy's high school water polo champion this weekend.

Upper Arlington - 2015 Ohio HS Girl's State Champs

Upper Arlington 11 Sycamore 6 (recap via ThisWeekNews.com)

Upper Arlington High School girls water polo coach Dan Peterkoski preaches to his team the type of conditioning that, in his words, will allow the Golden Bears to be as sharp in the final 10 seconds of a game as they are in the first 10.

If the UA players did not feel themselves getting stronger as the state final against Cincinnati Sycamore progressed Oct. 24 at Ohio Wesleyan University, they swore they sensed the Aviators getting tired.

Brooke Brown's four goals led a balanced Bears offense, and UA scored nine unanswered goals between the second and fourth quarters to defeat Sycamore 11-6 and capture their fifth state championship in six years and 15th overall.

"We just swim and we sensed them getting tired. We could see it in their faces," said Chloe Magyari, who scored with 16 seconds left in the first half to bring UA within a goal of Sycamore and scored twice more early in the second half as the Bears began to pull away. "At halftime, I was pretty scared. I knew we were doing well and once we got warmed up, we could go in there and finish it."

UA, which finished 31-1, trailed 4-1 late in the second quarter before Brown and Magyari scored in the final 1:11 to trim the deficit to 4-3 at halftime.

Katie Trace, who had two goals in the contest, tied the game 11 seconds into the third quarter.

In the second half, the Bears eschewed their usual strength of attacking from in front of the goal, instead scoring from angles and occasionally scoring into essentially an open net.

"They took away our ability to drive the middle, so we had to get the ball to the weak side more in order to open things up," Peterkoski said. "I just told the girls that if they kept playing the way they were, the opportunities would keep coming. We had to take advantage of them."