North Idaho Water Polo repeats as Junior Olympic national champions

The North Idaho Water Polo girls 18U team defended its 2024 Junior Olympic Championship title last weekend by winning the Session III 2025 National Junior Olympics Tournament in Dallas.  

The Idaho Narwhals team is comprised of a very talented group of players — Jillian Provost, Alena Gonzalez, Gianna Gonzalez, Claire Thorpe, Rachel Tober, Amanda Bittleston, Daisy Whitney, Gracelyn Kenney, Priya Bevacqua, Addy Karoblis, Addy Wallace and goalie Reese Taylor. 

The team started out the tournament on July 31 with two rather easy victories: 16-6 vs Fleet out of Houston and 22-4 vs the Kraken out of San Antonio. The two victories put NIWP into the Platinum (top) division where the competition level would be higher. 

The next morning NIWP played against a strong New Haven Hydras team from Connecticut. In one of their more closely matched games, the NIWP Narwhals got an early lead and then slowly built it through the match, though the Hydras managed to stay within striking distance until the end, with NIWP winning 11-8. Later that day the team played the Houston Storm club. Idaho overwhelmed the opponent with numerous goals from the hole set and from its outside shooters. Goalie Reese Taylor knocked down almost all Houston’s attempts in route to a 15-3 finish.  

On the third day of the tournament, North Idaho matched up with another top seeded club — the Orlando United Black squad.  Orlando looked unstoppable with two very strong hole players and a variety of excellent shooters on the outside. The Narwhals looked tight and unsettled in the game. Orlando was able to repeatedly score by passing the ball into the set position and then either scoring or drawing ejections. Orlando’s outside shooters were also repeatedly finding the outside corners of the cage, making blocks from the defense difficult. Orlando won the game 16-6. Losing this game made the NIWP club’s journey more difficult — it would need to win the next three games in a row in order to win the championship.   

Later on the third day, NIWP played the Sea Monsters out of Cincinnati and quickly built an early lead, ultimately winning 14-3, giving the Narwhals an easy game and some much-needed rest. At this point, NIWP had an overall record of 5-1, which put it in the semifinals on the last day of the tournament.   

The next morning, the team played the Viper Pigeon team from Houston. The game was very close throughout the game, with defense taking a priority for both squads. After a very hard-fought first quarter and strong defense on both teams, the score remained 0-0.  

NIWP broke open the scoring in the second quarter, with Alena Gonzalez putting in the first goal of the game. Rachel Tober followed up with a penalty shot goal, giving NIWP a 2-0 lead. The teams then traded goals through the rest of the second and third quarters, giving the Narwhals a 4-3 lead going into the fourth quarter.  

The Houston team came out strong in the fourth and scored two natural goals to take the lead 5-4. Shortly afterward, NIWP earned an exclusion and Claire Thorpe scored on the resulting 6-5 play, tying the game. Both teams scored again in the quarter and the score was tied 6-6 going into the final minute of the game. 

After some quick passing, NIWP’s goalie Reese Taylor blocked a shot by the Pigeons. The Narwhals set up their offense and passed the ball to Rachel Tober who scored, giving NIWP a 7-6 lead with less than a minute remaining.  

Houston immediately called a timeout to install a play but its attempt was thwarted with a steal by Alena Gonzalez. NIWP then slowed down the game with 38 seconds left. Idaho worked the ball down the pool but did not realize Houston had dropped back two players. Jillian Provost covered one player but the other was left wide open in front of NIWP’s goal. The coaches screamed at the players to get back to cover the open player, but couldn’t be heard due to the crowd noise. 

Houston recovered the ball with 8 seconds left as time ran out on Idaho’s possession. In the scramble and confusion, the Houston goalie didn’t see the open player who was ready to score a goal and instead threw the ball to an outside attacker covered by Thorpe who pulled up and was able to tip the ball away. By the time the ball was recovered, time ran out and Idaho secured the win.   

The victory placed NIWP into the national championship game against the highly regarded Orlando United squad, who had crushed every team it had played, including NIWP, and looked unstoppable. Orlando’s average winning score was 17-5 in their six tournament games.   

The NIWP team decided to go with a much less scripted offense and defense in the championship game, with the coaching staff telling players to play with more abandon and a free-flowing offense. On defense, they went with their favorite piston defense (alternating defenders to the set position to reduce scoring opportunities from the hole set position while also covering the top shooters). 

Scouting work had revealed Orlando was not only regarded as the best team in the tournament but had no apparent weaknesses. Orlando often ran a 2-post hole set with its two excellent hole set players, had many excellent perimeter shooters and got back quickly in the counter-attack and transition games. Their hole defenders were also very strong, often pushing out or fronting the opponent’s centers. 

NIWP’s offensive strategy had Gianna Gonzalez covering most of their set play with occasional support from Rachel Tober, Alena Gonzalez and Addy Karoblis. Jillian Provost took primary responsibility for set defense, with Karoblis and other filling in as needed. Priya Bevacqua also started for the Narwhals.  

One area NIWP found challenging throughout the tournament was exclusions — in the earlier game, this gave the Orlando many opportunities (nearly 20 during the course of the game) to score on 6-on-5 plays. However, NIWP’s 6-5 defense was excellent with the United team shut out of nearly everything but weaker outside shots or inside passes which were knocked down by Idaho’s inside players, while Reese Taylor did a fantastic job as goalie covering anything that got through.     

The game was low scoring and very close for the first half as both teams struggled to score against excellent defenses. NIWP scored first with an early goal by Tober on a penalty throw who then followed up a few minutes later with a natural goal. Bevacqua added to the early total with another nice outside shot, shocking the Orlando team with a three-goal lead in the first 2 minutes.  

Orlando took a time out to reset and was then able to score the next three goals, putting the game back into a tie. The teams swam back and forth repeatedly in the first half, with Alena Gonzalez finishing up the first quarter scoring with a nice assist from her sister, giving the Narwhals a 4-3 lead.    

Idaho’s defense looked increasingly strong during the game, allowing only one goal in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the Narwhals’ offense continued to score, with Tober adding two more goals and Thorpe scoring on a 6-5 situation, giving Idaho a 7-4 lead at the half.  

In the third quarter, Orlando’s set player Fiona Pando was able to score twice from the hole. However, the Gonzalez sisters stepped up their scoring too, with Alena scoring a natural goal and Gianna putting the ball into the goal on two 6-5 plays, giving Idaho a 10-6 lead going into the 4th quarter.  

One concern for the coaches was that most of Idaho’s starters had multiple exclusions and additional exclusions would force them out of the game. The hole defenders needed additional support from the rest of the defense to cover the hole and allow them to not take unnecessary fouls.   

Provost added a goal on another 6-5 play, increasing the Narwals lead to 11-6. Orlando continued to fire shots from on top in what looked like an increasing desperate attempt to find goals. Orlando did find one with a couple minutes to go in the quarter, drawing the United team to 11-7. Shortly after however, Thorpe found the goal also off a nice assist from Karoblis on another 6-5 play, giving Idaho a secure 12-7 lead.  

The teams traded shooting opportunities, but no further goals were scored and as the clock ran out, the crowd stood on its feet, stomped their feet, rang cowbells and cheered while the players and coaching staff (Mark Collingham, Makenna Ferguson and Rylan Butera) jumped into the pool to celebrate.