The coaches of the water polo team hold an annual meeting every year for both returning and incoming players. The meeting focuses on explaining how the team is run and what changes are coming in the year ahead.

This year the meeting was held on May 15. At the meeting, Coach Nick Hellwig and Coach Gary Tameris revealed that there would be a change in the way that the state tournament is run next year.

“Instead of there being a regional tournament and then a state tournament, there will just be one state tournament that every team goes to,” said Jory Gould, 10.

In previous years, all of the teams in the state of Ohio would enter the regional tournament. The teams played in the regional tournament and the top four teams moved on to compete in the state tournament.

Now, there will only be one state tournament. All of the teams in the state will compete and there will be multiple satellites where the games will be played, rather than in the past when every game was played at Mason.

“It’s going to be different because now we will have to go multiple places rather than just playing them all at Mason. SHS is going to be one of the sites though, which I think is pretty cool,” said Gould.

Another change is that the girl’s tournament will be held on Oct. 17 through Oct. 18, and the boy’s tournament will be held on Oct. 25 through Oct. 26. Formerly, the girl’s and the boy’s regional and state tournament were held on the same weekend and they were both at Mason.

“I think it’s unfortunate that the other teams won’t be guaranteed that the boy’s or girl’s team will be there to cheer each other on and that actually making it to state isn’t its own achievable goal,” said Jessica Wei, 10.

Other than the change in the way that the regional and state tournament is run, the season will be run similarly to this year.

The team will begin practicing and the varsity team’s first tournament is the Sprint Off Classic at Napoleon High School on Aug. 15 to Aug. 16. For more information on the upcoming season, click here.