Harvard-Westlake hosted the S&R Elite 8 Water Polo Tournament from Sept. 13-15. Harvard Westlake dominated the tournament and earned 1st place, which consisted of eight teams. The tournament intends to find which water polo team is the best in the country out of those eight This year, all eight participating schools originated from California.

The eight teams participating in the tournament were Harvard-Westlake, Loyola, Miramonte, Newport Harbor, Bellarmine, Vista, Oaks Christian and Sacred Heart Preparatory. Since the tournament was founded in 2016, HW has one twice (2016 and now, in 2018) Oaks Christian has won once (2017).

“Honestly, the tournament started off shaky initially. We were just not getting along, we had a lot of problems, but towards the end, we all came together and started fixing our individual issues,” Ethan Shipman ‘20 said.

Harvard Westlake won in the tournament after defeating Sacred Heart Preparatory with a score of 12-5. Their victory came after previously losing to Sacred Heart by a score of 11-10.In their previous games, HW defeated Vista by a score of 14-7. The next day, they defeated their past rival, Oaks Christian by a score of 14-1. On the last day, HW defeated Newport by a score of 11-6.

“We played really well as a team following our pool play loss to Sacred Heart, which succeeded in uniting us under the idea of getting the chance to play them again in the championship game. As a result, our team played very well following the loss which ultimately led to us winning the whole tournament,” Alexandru Bucur ’19 said.

Overall, the team has been doing well this season. Their overall record is 14-3 with a league record of 3-0.