St John’s College U16 and Chisipite’s U17 water polo sides registered convincing victories on Saturday playing in the first tournament of the new year. St John’s U16 beat Hellenic 16-00, while Chisipite U17 beat Hellenic 17-00. Hosted by St John’s College, the tournament included boys’ teams from six high schools and girls’ teams from only two, with Bulawayo teams not traveling to Harare this time.
Seventeen fixtures were played in total, with games running from 7:30 in the morning through to 4:30 in the afternoon. Big wins are always a highlight for a crowd, but for a sport with limited numbers of teams the biggest win for Zimbabwean water polo was the fact that Lomagundi is housing a competitive first team boys’ squad again. Lomagundi has been competing in the junior age groups in the past few years, but seeing them in action as a competitive first team side was truly remarkable. Lomagundi played two games, losing 6-5 against St John’s and drawing two all with Peterhouse 2nd.
There has been a huge drive in Zimbabwe to grow water polo in recent years, and it seems to be paying off. Hellenic Academy is not only growing its own water polo program, but the state of the sport nationally, as demonstrated by the open training camp they held just before schools opened. Petra High in Bulawayo recently finished building a pool with the hope of developing boys’ and girls’ water polo teams. Though far from their golden days of dominating local schools water polo, Prince Edward is competing again. After the impressive display of Zimbabwean high school water polo in Cape Town last month, we look forward to an even brighter year in 2016.
Below are all the water polo results from the weekend.
| White | vs | Blue |
|---|---|---|
| St John’s U16 | 16-00 | Hellenic U16 |
| Peterhouse 2nd | 04-10 | Hellenic 2nd |
| St John’s 2nd | 06-05 | Lomagundi 1st |
| St George’s 1st | 02-06 | Peterhouse 1st |
| Prince Edward U17 | 00-19 | St George’s U17 |
| Peterhouse 2nd | 03-12 | Hellenic U17 |
| St John’s 1st | 07-01 | Peterhouse 1st |
| Chisipite U17 | 17-00 | Hellenic U17 |
| Hellenic 2nd | 02-05 | St John’s 2nd |
| Lomagundi 1st | 02-02 | Peterhouse 2nd |
| Hellenic 1st | 06-01 | St George’s 1st |
| Chisipite U16 | 04-03 | Hellenic U16 |
| St John’s U17 | 04-00 | Hellenic U17 |
| Prince Edward U17 | 01-04 | Hellenic U16 |
| St John’s U17 | 06-03 | St George’s U17 |
| Chisipite 1st | 07-02 | Hellenic 1st |
| St John’s 1st | 10-02 | Hellenic 1st |