A tropical storm surged through Lewisburg, Pa. on Sept. 10, flooding the highway and preventing the Diablo Valley College Men’s Water Polo team from competing in the annual Bison Open Tournament at Bucknell University.
Despite the shorter trip, the Vikings took full advantage of their time on the East Coast, winning three out of four games at the Navy Open Tournament against NCAA opponents in Annapolis, Md. on Sept. 3.
“We are the only junior college that gets to go to a tournament like that,” said Jeremy Lewis, a first year utility player from California High School. “It’s rewarding to know we can take those trips and play top notch teams back east.”
The DVC Men’s Water Polo team was one of three junior colleges in the country invited by the NCAA to play in the Navy Open Tournament. In previous years, DVC was the only junior college.
During the tournament, the Vikings beat Mercyhurst College, Iona College and Gannon University, all three being four-year universities and two NCAA Division I competitors. Johns Hopkins University handed the DVC Men’s Water Polo their only loss of the trip.
The annual trip to the East Coast is worth much more to the team than the valuable experience of playing against tough competition. Fourth-year Coach John Roemer describes the trip as essential to building the team chemistry, as Roemer is looking to lead the team to a fourth-straight Big 8 Conference Championship Title this year.
The team planned to spend ten days in a 4,300 square foot house in Chesapeake Bay for ten days, before the storm interrupted their plans. Staying in the house allows the team to study together and eat together, bonding them as a family.
Playing in Division I tournaments is a valuable experience not just for the team’s success this season, but it is valuable for the players’ futures. The trip gives players the opportunity to get exposure and markets them for potential scholarships to Division I schools on the East Coast.
Coach Roemer helps his players use water polo as a tool to get through school, stressing that being successful in the classroom goes hand in hand with being successful in the pool. The Men’s Water Polo Team has the third-best grade point average of the seventeen athletic teams here at DVC.
“I really like the coaching staff,” Ori Raz, said one of the team’s international players from Israel. “They take really good care of players, especially making foreign players feel at home.”
Raz is one of nine international players on the team and came to DVC after he heard about the opportunity from his friend Ayal Keren, a former DVC Water Polo star who now plays for the University of California, Berkeley. The coaching staff and potential for exposure are both factors that drew Raz in.
The Vikings are now back home, developing a great team chemistry and are playing to achieve a conference championship in order to achieve their final goal of winning a state championship.
“This is the deepest team we’ve ever had with the most individual talent through 15 people,” Coach Roemer said. “Our success this season will be based on how quickly we can start playing as a team.”
