The Hunter River Times

BY ALEX TIGANI

Milbrodale’s Olivia Lloyd has had a summer to remember.

The talented teenager travelled to Perth to represent the Hunter Hurricanes at the Australian Youth Water Polo Championships from January 15-19.

Team members were selected from local water polo teams from across the Hunter region and had been training together four times a week at Lambton Pool since October.

Olivia, who represents Central Newcastle at club level, admits she likes the fact that water polo is a unique sport.

“The training is hard but so much fun and rewarding,” she shared.
“I had the opportunity to travel with the team over to Perth this January for the Nationals and it was a great experience.

“We caught the plane over as a team, we all stayed together in the same apartment rooms and we had a van that took us to our games.

“The whole experience was so much fun and staying with all the girls on the team helped me get a lot closer to them.”

A total of 3000 kids, representing 140 teams across all divisions, competed over two weeks. 

Olivia competed in the ’16 and under Girls 2nd division’ which included 15 teams from across the country.

“We won three of our first four games but then had a difficult draw in the semi-finals, playing the gold medal winners (University of NSW Wests) in the second crossover,” she concluded.

“We lost against them by only one goal and then in our third semi-final game, we lost again by only one goal, in a penalty shootout.

“We won our fourth semi-final game 12-2 and ended up placing sixth out of 15.”

The Hunter Hurricanes will now be preparing for the Junior State Championships to be held in Sydney from April 12-19.