UH senior gets invite to play with U.S. team

Advertiser Staff

Beth Novick's water polo career isn't over by a long shot.

Novick will play her final matches for the University of Hawai'i at next week's National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship, missing graduation while she is away. Two weeks later she will play with the U.S. team at the program's National Training Center in Los Alamitos, Calif.

Novick, a 2-meter player who is 6 feet 1, led the Rainbow Wahine in goals scored the past two seasons. This season she has 52, second to freshman Monika Kruszona.

"My goal going into college was to be an All-American. This is beyond all my dreams," Novick said. "I talked about playing overseas and didn't even know if it was practical. To be asked to the national team. ..."

The senior from Illinois was a third-team All-American last year and has already earned all-Mountain Pacific Sports Federation honors — for the second year in a row — this season.

She will play for new U.S. women's coach Bill Barnett, who was hired in March. Barnett plans to bring in 25 to 30 athletes for the first workout and has said he will concentrate on shoring up the 2-meter and goalie positions.

UH coach Michel Roy inherited Novick when he came here in her sophomore year. "Her progress has gone to a world-class level," he said.

Guy Baker coached the women's team in the first two Olympics to include women's water polo (2000, 2004). The U.S. medaled both years. Baker is now men's coach.

Barnett was men's national coach from 1985 to 1992. He was the last coach to take the U.S. men to a medal, winning silver at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.