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Matt Krzemienski passes the ball during warmups at Purdue. Photo by Joshua Cole

Northwestern University competes in the Big Ten Conference for club water polo. The men’s main season is in the fall, the women’s in the winter. At the end of the season is the Big Ten Championship Tournament. The top two finishers at the Big Ten Tournament go to the club water polo national championship. Michigan State won the national title in men’s and women's water polo in 2000.

The men and women are having home tournaments in the spring. The Women have their annual Wildcat Invitational March 14-16. The men have a day tournament on March 8.

Northwestern’s men’s fall home tournament was October 18-20.

During the season, the teams practice four days a week, twice a week out-of-season. Practices are 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., at Northwestern’s recreation center pool.

A large number of players have had strong swimming backgrounds but have never played water polo before. A player every couple of years has come onto the team without any swimming background, and after two or three years has become a regular player.

On Wednesday's the men's team scrimmaged against the Northern Illinois Water Polo Club (NIWPC), a local men's club team.

The polo teams play in tournaments on the weekends. The teams will spend the weekend at a university playing four games.

Both the men’s and the women’s teams have coaches.

The men’s team is scheduled to play in two tournaments in the winter, and an outdoor tournament in Tennessee in the spring. The team also hopes to schedule a home tournament in the winter or spring.

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Water polo is played between two teams, with six players plus a goalie in the water for each team. Players cannot touch the bottom of the pool nor the wall. Players must swim from one end of the pool to the other, and tread with their legs.

Kori Touton (3) looks to pass the ball, with Heather Walenga waiting. Photo courtesy of Women's Water Polo

In the United States, water polo is most popular in the in Southern California, but there are players and leagues nearly everywhere. Most players take up water polo because they love swimming, and they want to do something more than just swim laps.

The size of the playing field varies based on the size of the pool, but most games are about 25 meters across (the width of a pool) and 30 meters in length.

Goals are 4 feet tall by 8 feet wide.

Each game takes about one hour to play. Games last four quarters, 6 or 7 minutes each quarter. There is a 35-second shot clock.

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Players: 1. Goalie 2. Hole set 3. Wings 4. Flats 5. Point

Ron Toam catches the ball during warmups at Purdue, while Dave Guile (top) waits for a pass in front of the goal. Photo by Joshua Cole

The hole set usually plays with his back to the goal with a defender behind him. The hole set gets the ball when a pass is dropped a couple of feet in front of him. When the hole set goes to pick up the ball, he will:
1) Take a shot, either forehand or backhand.
2) Pass the ball to someone else who has an open shot.
3) Get fouled, a kick-out or 4-meter.

Most teams do not want the ball to get to the hole set, and they will usually have perimeter defenders crash toward the hole to steal the ball in the water before the hole set can control the ball.

Offensive players cannot blatantly push off a defender to get to the ball, and the offensive players will usually get called for an offensive foul for doing so.

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A kickout or 4-meter occurs when a player has a blatant foul. Each player can only have three kickouts per game. On a kickout, the team on offense has a 6-on-5 advantage for 20 seconds or until they score or lose possession.

Man-up Situations

(Offense in red) (Defense in blue) Arrows indicate defensive players movements.

On a 6-on-5, the offense (players in red) usually has two players in front of the post (4, 5 in red), two players on the wings (1, 6) and two players on top (2 ,3).

The defense (in blue) usually splits three players (2s, 3) along the bottom and two player (4s). Each player splits his defensive duty between two players: The 3 plays between the 4 and 5, each 4 plays between the 4 and 2 or the 3 and 5, while each 2 plays between the 6 and 5 or the 1 and 4. The player who got kicked out (6). has to swim to the corner until the referee waves him back. The goalie (1) moves from side-to-side of the cage.

On a 4-meter, a kickout inside the 4-meter line, instead of a man-advantage, an offensive player takes an uncontested penalty shot from the 4-meter line.

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