The Alabama Men’s Club Water Polo team finished its fall season out with multiple new team highs.
Most recently, the team competed at the Collegiate Water Polo Association National Championships on Nov. 11 and placed fourth overall, a new record.
At nationals, the team came in as the No. 13 seed and secured multiple upsets, including in the first round against Dartmouth, the No. 4 seed, that helped it place fourth.
Senior club president Michael DiLascia, freshman Landon Kenney and senior vice president Ethan Stout were nominated to the CWPA All-Tournament team at the championships. DiLascia took home first team honors, and Stout and Kenney received second team honors.
Despite coming into the season with a team of mostly freshmen and sophomores, Alabama quickly proved itself at multiple tournaments and went into the national championships undefeated.
“I feel like I started a dynasty,” Stout said.
At the men’s water polo tournament hosted at The University of Alabama on Sept. 21, the team took home two wins against Georgia Tech, 9-3 and 12-11. These wins were something the team went into the season striving for after a tough loss to Georgia Tech last year.
The team functions in a rather unconventional way as it doesn’t have any coaching staff and operates with an executive board that makes decisions instead.
Its practices mostly focus on team-bonding exercises along with the occasional drills or scrimmage.
Despite their unusual practices, the team performed well overall, ending the season 13-2.
“I think everybody on our team just actually loves the sport of water polo. So it was a lot easier to convince guys to want to go to tournaments and to want to go to practice as opposed to previous years,” Stout said.
