A Record Summer for the #FoothillFamily

Every summer, Junior Olympics is the measuring stick for club water polo in this country — the biggest, deepest tournament our athletes will play all year. This summer, Foothill showed up like never before.

We qualified a record 13 teams for the 2026 USA Water Polo Junior Olympics — the most this club has ever sent in a single summer. Thirteen rosters, from our 10U group all the way through our 18U boys and girls, earned their place among the best teams in the nation. Four of those teams competed in the Championship bracket, the top flight of the entire tournament. I could not be prouder of this group.

What Junior Olympics Asks Of You

At JOs, every team is placed into a bracket and plays for a final national ranking. The Championship bracket (Platinum and Gold) is the deepest water in the tournament; the Classic bracket (Silver and Bronze) and, for our high school boys, the Invitational tier round out the field. Finishing well inside your bracket against that level of competition is hard-earned — and this group earned plenty.

The Results

Girls & Coed

Boys

Performances That Stood Out

A few results deserve a special shout. Our 12U Boys Red brought home a 3rd-place finish in the Silver bracket, and our 18U Boys Red placed 4th in the Gold bracket of the Championship flight. On the girls’ side, 14U Girls Black climbed eight spots from their seed to take 4th in Bronze, and 10U Mixed Black matched them with a 4th-place Bronze finish of their own. Several teams — 14U Girls Red, 16U Girls, 12U Boys Black and 14U Boys Red — all finished higher than they were seeded, which is exactly what you want to see when the games matter most.

None of this happens without our coaches, who pour their summers into these teams, and our families, who make the early mornings and the long tournament days possible. Thank you. And to our athletes: you represented Foothill the right way, and you raised the bar for every summer to come.

Go Foothill. — Dominic Vicino, Director of High School Boys