The NUWR Sea Lions Club from Newark, NJ, is hosting the NUWR Cup 2024. This Cup will take place on Saturday October 12-13th at the Ironbound Recreation Center in Newark, NJ.

Eight mixed teams from New Jersey, Massachusets, and the DC area, will compete for the NUWR Cup title.

Participating teams:

MIXED DIVISION:

• Boston Narwhals Dunks
• Boston Narwhals Lobster
• DC Devilrays A
• DC Devilrays B
• NJ Hammerheads A
• NJ Hammerheads 1
• NUWR Sea Lions A
• NUWR Sea Lions B

FINAL POSITIONS:

1st Place:       NJ Hammerheads 1

2nd Place:     NUWR A

3rd Place:      Boston Lobster

1st Place – NJ Hammerheads 1

2nd Place – NUWR A

3rd Place – Boston Lobster

During the past weekend Mixed and Women teams from all the USA met at the 2024 USA Underwater Rugby National Championships in Coral Springs Florida, hosted by the local club Florida Inter UWR to compete and decide the National Champions for 2024.

Florida Inter won the bid to host the Nationals and celebrated this new competition at the National level with a recently updated venue that on the underwater rugby side presented a newly vinyl surfaced floor and walls for the diving/uwr pool as well as a newly rebuilt pool deck.

This years Nationals as in recent years used a 22m long and 5m deep pool making it an additional challenge for uwr teams.

On the mixed division, five teams competed on a round robin and went straight to finals 1st vs 2nd for gold  and 3rd vs 4th. For bronze.

The championship started with SF Sea Bass from California playing against DC Devilrays from the Washington DC area.

The SF Sea Bass team was finally present at Nationals with full team after several years of joint participation with other clubs and started strong defeating DC by 10-0

The second game between NJ Hammerheads vs Boston Narwhals was postponed due to flight cancellations from Boston.

In one of the first games the defending champions from 2023, the NJ Hammerheads were surprised by the San Francisco Giant Sea Bass team beating them strongly 0-2. With this score the Hammerheads were urged to secure wins on the following games to get a spot in the finals.

The group ended with the undefeated SF Sea Bass on first place, and the NJ Hammerheads on 2nd after winning all the other games on their group. And securing their spot on the final game for gold.

Boston Narwhals was another great surprise with a very young team that got 3rd place over the FL Inter UWR team that got 4th place in the group. Boston Narwhals, the oldest active club in the US and is in the middle of a generational transition that most likely will be getting to their peak in the near future. A large group of very fast teenagers with some very experienced players are growing step by step on their uwr career.

On the Women division three teams competed on a double round robin format and then the first two teams will play the final game for gold.

The round robin games came with amazingly closed games between the defending champions NJ Hammerheads-W and the Colorado Mountain Chicks-W. Both games in favor of the first by 1-0 via penalty shot and 2-0. The DC Devilrays managed to play strong games but lost all of them ending on 3rd place.

On the final game for gold NJ Hammerheads and Colorado raised their team play and on a very closed game ended up with a 0-0 tie that send them to the penalty shoot-out, on which the NJ Hammerheads-W were able to hold to the National Champion title winning the shoot-out 2-1. This new Championship made the NJ hammerheads Ladies the most successful team in the US with a 3rd National Championship on the women’s division

Back to the mixed division, the final game bronze was no surprise as Boston was leading the very experienced FL Inter team by 1-0 until the last minute when a fast play from FL Inter tied the game just a few seconds before the end of the game. Unfortunately for Boston what was a strong point for them, became a weak point on a game definition by penalty shoot-out. The FL Inter team had stronger and heavier players that helped secure the Bronze medal for their team. This was the best performance for the FL Inter Team since 2022 when they also got 3rd place on the National Championships.

On the mixed final game for gold the defending Champion NJ Hammerheads were urged to get a different outcome from their first game against SF Sea Bass. The game started really strong with constant attacks on the SF basket, but SF proved to have a very strong defense during the entire championship. (no goals against in four games). On a strong attack from SF , the NJ Hammerheads had to pick up the ball from their basket once again for a 0-1 partial score, but this didn’t seem to change the game for them as the pressure on the SF basket was still constant and the goal to tie the game was closer and closer. On the second half a few minutes before the end of the game the equalizer goal came by Juan Riomaña, but a few seconds later the NJ Hammerheads saw one of their players being sent out on a time penalty for the remainder of the game. The power play was in favor of SF Sea Bass, but with only 5 men in the water the very decided Hammerheads managed to end the game with a tie, forcing the penalty shoot-out.

On the penalties the series of 3 ended on a 3-3 tie and then on the following series of individual penalties the victory came for the Hammerheads securing the gold and the 2024 National Champion Title again.

San Francisco Giant Sea Bass finished their best performance with this 2nd place after a 3rd place on the National Championships series back in 2014

For the Hammerheads this was their 8th National Championship being the most successful team in the US.

This 2024 National Championships were without a doubt the most closely decided tournament in years with both divisions going to penalty shoot-outs.

Top scorer individual awards went to Jim Holmback from SF Sea Bass on the mixed division and Carolina Osorio from NJ Hammerheads-W on the women’s division

Top scorer team was for SF Sea Bass on men’s and NJ Hammerheads-W for the women’s.

Best team defense award went to SF Sea Bass with only 1 goal against on the men’s division as well as the NJ Hammerheads-W on the women’s

Mixed division Podium

1. NJ Hammerheads

2. SF Giant Sea Bass

3. FL Inter UWR

Women’s division Podium

1. NJ Hammerheads-W

2. Colorado Mountain Chicks-W

3. DC Devilrays-W

The New Jersey Hammerheads Club from Newark, NJ, is hosting the first Underwater Rugby event of 2024. The Nor’easter Underwater Rugby tournament will take place on Saturday February 24th at the Ironbound Recreation Center in Newark, NJ.

Six mixed teams from New Jersey, Massachusets, the DC area, and even some players from Canada will compete for the Nor’easter Champion title.

Participating teams:

MIXED DIVISION:

• Boston Narwhals A
• Boston Narwhals B
• DC Devilrays
• NJ Hammerheads A
• NJ Hammerheads 1
• NUWR Sea Lions

The DC Devilrays from the Washington DC area, are hosting for the first time an Underwater Rugby event and for such especial event they secured a brand new pool, the Long Bridge Aquatic & Fitness Center, which seems to be a promising and amazing venue for the sport on the Northeast.

Eight mixed teams and four women’s team will compete for the USA National Champion titles.

Participating teams:

MIXED DIVISION:

• NUWR Sea Lions A (defending champions)
• NJ Hammerheads
• DC Devilrays
• Boston Narwhals
• CT Makos
• NUWR Sea Lions B
• Dist. Callihassee (mixed)
• Dist. Tallahammer (mixed)

WOMENS DIVISION

• NJ Hammerheads (defending champions)
• CT Makos
• DC Devilrays
• Colorado

The new UWR club Florida Inter organized the 2022 Florida Cup, event parallel to the USA Finswimming World Cup that took place at the Coral Springs Aquatic Complex in Florida.

Eight teams in the Mixed division and three from the Women division competed along two USA men teams and one USA women team as preparation for the 2023 World Championships in Montreal Canada.

The US national teams participated only in the group stage while only the club teams follow to the semifinals and finals of the competition. Teams from abroad where invited but the current political situation around the world have impacted the appointments for visas and only a few players with previously issued visas where able to travel, most of them reinforcing the local teams.

In the mixed division the top seeded club team in group A, NUWR from New Jersey had a smooth classification defeating all the other club teams ( Boston, NJ hammerheads B, Fl Inter B) and only loosing to the USA Red team. On group B, and the current USA National Champion NJ hammerheads won all the games against the club teams in their group (FL Inter A, Tallahassee, SF Pulpos) and also the USA Blue team.

Semifinal matches had NUWR playing against the hosts Florida Inter A were NUWR got a 4-0 win and advanced to the finals later on Sunday. The other semi-final had for the first time two teams from the same club, NJ Hammerheads A and NJ Hammerheads B who make history qualifying to semi-finals after a tie in points to Boston and only one goal on the differential gave them the spot to play against their A team. NJ Hammerheads A got a well fought game and victory of 10-0.

The final game had the top two teams from New Jersey, NUWR and NJ Hammerheads on which Hammerheads got the lead 1-0 on the first half, and early on the second half got and advantage of 2-0 which at the end lead the Hammerheads to win the gold and keep the momentum on top of UWR in the US.

On the women’s division, The NJ Hammeheads Women got their first gold medal after several tournament participations on the young ladies tournaments in the US. On the group stage, the Hammerheads lost only to the NUWR team 0-2, the getting a tie 1-1 on their second round robin game, and finally meeting again on the final game for the gold on which the teams got a goaless match that ended up on a series of penalty throws that also ended in a tie 2-2. Later going to the one round penalty throws, the Hammerhads finally defeated NUWR with a 0(3)-0(2) score.

The USA UWR committee decided that the following tournament will be the 2022 USA National Championship to take place in New Haven Connecticut in September. This event will serve as the qualification event to participate on this year’s Champions Cup in Berlin late in November.

By Timmy Burke

Congratulations to all USA UWR Athletes who completed and assisted in the 2021 UWR National Championships in Thornton, Colorado on November 13-14, 2021. Thanks to the huge effort by Katrina Finlay and the Colorado UWR club, USA UWR Nationals was an outstanding success. As you know, the 2020 Nationals were cancelled and it required some heavy lifting with short notice by Colorado UWR to ensure the 2021 event was to happen. The facility was outstanding and Colorado also ensured that CMAS Qualified referees were on hand which is always desired.

There were 12 teams total: 8 teams in the Open Division and 4 teams in the Women’s Division. We also had 2 new UWR Clubs competing at the Tournament (Colorado and Tallahassee). The level to which the new teams played was immense and bodes well for USA UWR going forward. Both the Women’s and Men’s USA National Teams had tryouts the Friday before which will help in the effort for the 2023 World Championships. 

The women’s teams who competed were the Amazons, Colorado, Hammerheads and Makos, with Colorado winning the 2021 Women’s National Champions.  In the Open Division, the competing teams were Colorado, DC Tallahassee, Hammerheads, Hammerheads B, Krakens, Narwhals, Newark, and Sea Bass, with the Hammerheads as the 2021 National Champions, We look forward to 2022, with tournaments in Newark and Coral Springs already being scheduled!

Standings and Statistics HERE

This past weekend, the New Jersey Hammerheads Club had the honor to host the first UWR event of 2020. The 27th North American Tournament and USA round of the North American League for UW Rugby.

Final Game – NJ Hammerheads A (white) vs NUWR A (blue) The Hammerheads won over NUWR by 2-1

1. NJ Hammerheads A  1
2. NUWR A  4
3. Florifornia 7

This event was the first of the US round of the North American League UWR for 2020. The Canadian round will take place in the second semester of 2020 in a city TBD soon.

For full results of this tournament and stats of the NAL 2020 Click HERE

1st Place – New Jersey Hammerheads A

2nd Place – NUWR A

3rd Place – Florifornia Mix