With a new season opening for the Brooklyn Hustle Water Polo Club (BHWC) on September 13th, it’s instructive to review the previous season, which included significant milestones for New York City’s premier polo club.
After two years of relative inactivity due to Covid-19, the Hustle filled up their 2021-22 tournament schedule, traveling to Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Florida for regional play before a season closing trip in July to the National Junior Olympics, Session III, in Dallas, Texas.
“For a lot of these kids it was their first Junior Olympics. For others, it was their last high school water polo experience,” Jonathan Koganov, who coached the 18U group, said about the club’s grand adventure in the Lone Star State. “We made it our mission for graduating players to have a good time and get a lot of wins in their last games.”
JOs proved to be the perfect culmination of a year-long season, one where the Hustle’s 100-plus members tackled many competitive challenges—obstacles that will be useful building blocks for the 2022-23 season.
Connecticut’s Tri-State League: a tournament staple
Starting last October and taking place in monthly clusters in the fall and the spring was the Tri-State League, held at the YMCA in Greenwich, Connecticut. A competitive constant for the Hustle—teams from Brooklyn have competed in Tri-State League play every year since its founding in 2013—the club’s 12U and 14U teams acquitted themselves as well as they ever have, claiming fourth place overall in the 12U bracket and sixth in 14U.
Noteworthy for the younger group were two wins and a tie over teams from Greenwich, the region’s top age group program. Gaining multiple victories against Greenwich in the same year was a club first. By taking two wins on the season’s final day, the Hustle achieved the club’s best-ever finish in the 14U age group.
In early 2022 BHWC participated in the South Florida International Water Polo Tournament—another club first. On the trip to Coral Springs for the long Presidents’ Day weekend the Hustle were represented by three teams: a coed 14U squad and 16U and 18U boys teams. The result for the youngest group was noteworthy; they placed 11th out of 14 teams with two wins and three losses—and one of those losses was by a single goal.
[Brooklyn Hustle Gains More Than Pride at South Florida Water Polo Invitational]
The 16U also performed well, placing ninth by winning their last three matches after two losses on the tournament’s opening day. The 18U were competitive in the majority of their five matches; even though there were no victories, the results were encouraging for a squad with aspiration of playing a national tournament in the summer.
That would come if the 18Us chose to go to the Junior Olympics. In the run up to the Northeast Zone qualifier for JOs in May the club’s senior boys successfully negotiated American Water Polo’s Main Line League, winning four times, losing once and tying once.
Fielding two 12U and two 14U teams, the Hustle also sent legions of younger players to Philadelphia’s Main Line. The difference between squads was experience and ability; in an effort to get the club’s youngest players involved, BHWC coaches Layla Bezhadian, Mike Byrd and Irakli Sanadze encouraged numerous Hustle boys and girls to travel to PA on multiple weekends for competition against local squads as well as an occasional Connecticut or New York City club.
Splitting more than a dozen matches, many young players delighted in their first-ever experience competing in organized, travel team play—making the entire adventure an unqualified success. Though no medals were awarded, the Hustle’s top 12U team won the majority of their games, presaging success to come later in the season.
A trip to Dallas is just the ticket for the Hustle
That the culmination for the Hustle season would be in Dallas became clear in May. First, the club’s 14U and 18U squads chose to attend the Northeast Zone qualifier on May 21-22 in Wissahickon, Pennsylvania. The 18Us won one match out of four—a 17-10 defeat of Asphalt Green, their NYC rivals—which secured the Hustle a coveted JOs Session I spot in California.
The 14U were not as successful. A joint team—with rival AG—was never competitive against stronger, more cohesive zone rivals. Their only option after failing to qualify for California: Dallas. This was also the desired destination for the 18Us, who chose to forgo their Golden State berth and join their 12U and 14U teammates on a trip to Texas, the first time the Hustle sent more than one squad to national JOs.
At the end of July—just prior to flying out for JOs—a number of Hustle players participated in a two-day clinic presented by Felix Mercado, Brown head men’s and women’s coach, and Gabby Juarez, head coach for LIU’s men’s and women’s team. Not only was it the first time the club had invited such well-known coaches to work with our players, it was also Mercado’s first-ever time at LIU Brooklyn’s pool—the Hustle’s home the past four years.
[Brown’s Mercado, LIU’s Juarez on College Water Polo Recruitment]
It’s all about friendship
For a first-ever entry on the national stage, the Hustle 12U squad made quite the splash. Thought they did not medal—placing seventh in the platinum bracket— with five wins and two losses the BHWC’s youngest squad was as competitive at JOs as any New York City team has in recent years.
The 14U team—which played under AG colors but was predominately populated by Brooklyn players—also had a strong tournament, winning five and losing four to place fifth in the gold bracket. The signature moment for this team, all of whose members were attending JOs for the first time, was a tough loss by penalties to hometown favorite Viper Pigeons, who captured second place.
With five players on the roster in their final age group competition—Nick Chopliani, Forrest and Graeson Coughenour, Cully MacPherson and Oscar Radu all aged out this summer—there was a decidedly bittersweet cast to the 18Us Lone Star State adventure.
Coach Koganov, who played for the Y Pro club in Sheepshead Bay, is no stranger to JO competition, having gone a couple of times during his teenage years. Now a 20-something with a day job as a medical researcher, the youthful coach countered the intensity of JO competition with memories of friends made and burdens shared over years with a club, culminating in some of the best competition Northeast teams ever face.
“Although there was some disappointment, we remember that sport is about more than wins and losses,” Koganov said. “It’s about the friends you make from the age of 10, the post-match dinners, the flights, the car rides, and everything in between,
“There will never be too much time with your team, your water polo family,” he added.
The results of the season’s final matches for the oldest Hustle group was a seventh-place finish in the gold division—an excellent outcome given this was the first time the Brooklyn club had sent a senior boys’ team to JOs. That, and the fact that half the roster was composed of 16U eligible athletes mean the future is certainly bright for all levels of the club—a future that becomes reality in just a few weeks.