The US Underwater Rugby committee met earlier in October to decide the new 2018-19 Underwater Rugby Season which came with some changes affecting the North American League and the US National competition.

The US UWR Committee decided to have a US UWR season consisting on three (3) National Tournament Rounds that will award points so at the end of the season the club with most points will be the National Champion for the Season that ends in September 2019.

Points awarded will go now 5 pts. for 1st Place, 3 pts. for 2nd Place,  2 pts. for 3rd Place and 1 pt. for the rest of participating teams.

The previous National League UWR will continue now with only two (2) events throughout the year one in the US and one in Canada and will be decided with the system of points. The NAL event in the US will be one of the National Tournaments mentioned above, that will be valid for both NT & NAL.

The first National Tournament of the 2018-19 Season was hosted by the NUWR club from Newark, NJ. Eight Club teams and 5 Women teams competed on the weekend of October 20-21, 2018 with the highlight of this event becoming the tournament with the record number of women’s teams, five (5) in total.

The club teams were divided in two groups Having the defending champion Boston Narwhals as head of GRoup A along with NUWR A, DC UWR and Hammerheads B. The top seed for the B Group was the NJ Hammerheads A team along with CT Makos (formerly East Haven Makos), Florida Krakens and NUWR B.

Boston Narwhals and NUWR A dominated their group easily with 10-0 scores over DC-UWR and Hammerheads B. The match between these top teams came in favor of Boston by a 2-0 win over NUWR A.

Group B was a bit more challenging to the top teams NJ Hammerheads A and Florida Krakens who had met on the first game of their group and was decided in favor of Nj Hammerheads over Florida by a close 1-0 final score.

On semifinals Boston narwhals defeated Florida 4-1 while the NJ Hammerheads A beat their counterpart NUWR A on a close game by 1-0. On the third place game NUWR A defeated a surprising Florida Krakens team by 1-0 on a very strong and close game.

The highlight of the Club tournament was the final game between Boston Narwhals and NJ Hammerheads A. These two teams met on the 21st NAL in Pompano Beach on a breath taking final in favor of Boston 2-1. This time was not the exception. The first half ended with a 0-0 score and early on the second half the NJ hammerheads surprised Boston wit  a goal from Daniel Naujoks. The game seemed to end in favor of the Hammehreads but a very quick pass by Filip Mundt left Mateo Galeano in perfect position to score the equalizer. After the 1-1, the Hammeheads were closer to score but ran out of time.

The penalty shoot-out ended tied again after each team missed one of the three shoot-outs per team. Then on the one to one series the Boston Narwhals won after three more chances being this the closest and breath taking tie break.

The women’s tournament had a Round robin with 5 teams on which The Connecticut Makos A (former East Haven Makos) dominated the group followed by Boston Narwhals.

The third place game ended up in favor of the DC UWR team over NJ Hammerheads by a clear 5-0  while the final game between CT Makos A and Boston Narwhals was also a strong game but dominated by the fast players from CT Makos with a final score of 4-1.

The final results on this tournament confirm the excellent level of the teams previously qualified to represent the US at the Champions Cup later this year in Berlin.

We wish the best to the Boston Narwhals and the Connecticut Makos on their Champions Cup participation.

Final Results HERE