Former Club Alumni competes in the inaugural USA Water Polo Crown LEgacy Cup

Recently USA Water Polo had brought together a massive tournament, called the Crown Legacy Cup, the tournament was to commemorate the decision by the International Olympic Committee to add women’s water polo to the summer Olympics games, the decision that finally proved true at the turn of the millennia in 2000. To commemorate the enormous moment in the development of water polo for women, the most successful women’s water polo program in the world in USA Water Polo had decided to create the Crown Legacy Cup to honor the powerful decision and to celebrate the pioneering women of the 2000 United States women’s water polo team, members that include USA water polo Hall of Famers such as Brenda Villa, Heather Petri and eleven of their teammates.

Incredibly, we had the honor of having one of our own alumni compete at the tournament hosted in Orange Coast College and Costa Mesa College on November 15th and 16th. Our very own Paloma Szivos was there, competing with one of the newer elite masters programs, Los Angeles Athletics Club.

Paloma is what most coaches would refer to as a late bloomer in water polo, having grown around swimming gave her a good background to playing, however, Paloma had only begun playing water polo at the age of 16 in 2006. Her strong athletic base made her development go through the roof, competing for Coach Michael Goldenberg, now our club director, helped push Paloma to become an All-American caliber player while in high school. Paloma’s knowledge of the game grew so rapidly that it only took two years for her to quickly garner national interest from multiple collegiate programs including the college she eventually chose, the currently defunct Saint Francis College women’s water polo team that resided in New York. Paloma continued her brilliant development in her sport of passion, by her senior year at Saint Francis, Paloma was viewed as one of the top players on the east coast including an eruption that saw Paloma hammer California Lutheran University with a six-goal outburst.

After proving her ability against the best of the best in the NCAA ranks of United States water polo, Paloma would spend graduate in 2012 where she would return to her homeland, Hungary, there Paloma would earn her spot on professional teams as she battled for a spot on the up and coming Hungarian national team only a few years before they would become one of the international powerhouses that they have been in recent memory. Competing for Honved and Eger, Paloma reminisced that her favorite water polo memories come from competing in the Hungarian league, including two appearances in the 2015 and 2016 final four of the Hungarian league as well as earning a bronze medal in the Hungarian cup.

Paloma Szivos, competing for South Florida Water Polo Club at a past Sunshine State Games.

After returning to Florida, Paloma would find herself unable to pull away from water polo, she would continue to play at the local masters tournaments as well as find herself coaching with us here at South Florida Water Polo Club. During her time, Paloma would graduate several talented female players through her coaching, including Sabrina Hoffmeister and Maddie Martinez who competed at La Salle University, Natalie Mahalec, Mia Leto and Emma Leto who went on to compete at Paloma’s alma mater Saint Francis College as well as Sydney Devroedt who attended Saint Francis College before its eventual closing of their athletic program, Sydney would transfer to Long Island University and now competes with Maddie Martinez at second division Italian team, Nautilus Civitavecchia.

Thanks to her contacts, Paloma was invited this summer to compete with Los Angeles Athletics Club, after strong showings at the U.S. Senior Nationals, Paloma had earned herself a spot on their roster which eventually led to this November where Paloma was able to compete at the monumental inaugural Crown Legacy Cup. The tournament would host two masters team, in LAAC and New York Athletics Club, NYAC as always loaded with American national team athletes, it would also include several of the country’s top collegiate programs as well as three teams consisting of younger female athletes within the United States Olympic Development Pipeline program.

Paloma and LAAC’s first game would be an early morning game on November 15th in surprisingly rainy south California against Arizona State University’s squad, which would prove to be too strong of an opponent for LAAC, the well-trained and year-round training squad of the Sun Devils would beat LAAC 2-19 which would later set them up to a game against another collegiate powerhouse women’s team in the USC Trojans. In the now torrential downpour, LAAC would find themselves down early to USC 0-4, however, after an exclusion drawn, who else would it be but Paloma to step up and start the scoring for LAAC, firing home a beautiful crosscage skip shot past the Trojan goalkeeper.

Along with the goal, Paloma would also draw an exclusion on a post up, unfortunately LAAC would not convert on the ensuing power play. The powerhouse Trojans would continue to build their strong lead, as LAAC would find the goal twice more, but the Trojans would take a 3-12 halftime lead. The Trojans would take full control of play, while LAAC would score three more goals in the second half, USC would score 11 more ending the game at 6-23 in favor of the Trojans. The two heavy losses in the rain, would set up a following day match up against USA Blue, one of the pipeline USA national team pipeline teams, a hotly contest, fast-paced match between the elder women of LAAC against the younger girls of USA Blue would be like a matchup of two heavyweights with both teams trading goals with USA Blue taking a 9-10 lead over LAAC. Though LAAC would pull the score back to a tie at 11-11, the young USA Blue was able to once again pull away by scoring the next three goals of the game to pull away with a 11-14 victory. A tough third loss would bring LAAC to a final game of the Crown Legacy Cup against another USA Pipeline team, the USA White, the match would prove just as tough. The USA White team would come out of the gates firing and take a 2-10 lead into halftime, continuing on, the USA White team would pour in goals and while LAAC finally found a few goals of their own, however, by the end USA White would take the game with a score of 7-18.

Regardless of the scores, it is the occasion to be able to play in a tournament to commemorate a huge moment for women’s water polo across the world and to celebrate female athletics and it is with great pride to see one of our own competing and representing South Florida Water Polo Club with pride.

Way to make us all proud, Paloma!