Kingswood College once again hosted a successful edition of the annual Brian Baker Water Polo tournament last weekend.
Kingswood College once again hosted a successful edition of the annual Brian Baker Water Polo tournament last weekend.
The first game of the tournament was played early on Friday afternoon, while the final came to an exciting conclusion at 5pm on Sunday. Teams end up playing 6-8 full length matches in three days – that is, four periods of eight minutes' playing time.
The three-day event is named after Brian Baker, a popular teacher at Kingswood who was instrumental in developing girls’ water polo at the school and coached the sport until the day he tragically passed away in 2004.
The tournament started on Friday in temperatures of 38 degrees, and ended on Sunday in chilly weather of about 15 degrees.
This First-Team Girls’ tournament has become a favourite among teams from the Eastern Cape, as well as from other provinces.
The following teams took part in this year’s tournament: DSG and Kingswood (Grahamstown), Clarendon, Hudson Park and Stirling (East London), Pearson and Collegiate (Port Elizabeth), Glenwood House and York (George), Reddam House Invitational (Cape Town).
This year’s event was tightly contested, with half the teams standing a good chance of emerging as the overall winner.
Pearson and Stirling, playing some outstanding water polo, emerged out of the pool stages as the winners of their respective pools. The two impressive teams met each other in the final, with Pearson coming out on top 5-2.
The host team, Kingswood College, played some committed water polo and earned the respect of their various opponents throughout the weekend.
On the first day Kingswood held the Reddam House team to a 2-2 draw before competing well against Stirling and eventually losing 4-8. The next day saw Kingswood beat York 23-2 and Hudson Park 11-2. These results ensured that Kingswood would progress to the play-off stages, where they met Clarendon. As the final whistle blew, the score was 4-4, which meant the teams would need to take part in a penalty shoot-out. The hosts eventually lost this 7-9, which meant that they would play for 5th/6th spot.
On the last day of the event, Kingswood beat Hudson Park again with a score of 7-1 and then also posted a win over Reddam House Invitational, finishing 5th overall.
Final positions:
1. Pearson
2. Stirling
3. Collegiate
4. Clarendon
5. Kingswood
6. Reddam House Invitational
7. DSG
8. Hudson Park
9. York
10. Glenwood House
View galleries from the Brian Baker Tournament:
http://www.grocotts.co.za/content/galleries/photo-galleries/kingswood-water-polo-06-02-2015
http://www.grocotts.co.za/content/galleries/photo-galleries/dsg-water-polo-06-02-2015
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