St. Thomas Aquinas’ Collingwood and Harkins are Broward Water Polo Players of the Year
Samuel Collingwood moved down from Central Florida, while Rebekah Harkins chose to again play the sport she had once loved as a child.
Both decisions paid off.
When Collingwood moved down from Orlando and joined the St. Thomas Aquinas boys’ water polo team, he didn’t need much time to adjust to his new surroundings.
Collingwood was already familiar with many of his teammates from playing club with South Florida Water Polo.
And, already an accomplished player at Orlando’s Dr. Phillips High, he was already familiar with the Raiders’ biggest nemesis — Miami Belen Jesuit.
Collingwood, whose team had been defeated by Belen in the past, as had Aquinas on multiple occasions, helped the Raiders earn some payback while winning their first state title in a decade when he scored five goals in the final.
Meanwhile, Harkins made the decision four years ago to play water polo again after not playing since she was 4 years old. Since, she’s become one of the state’s best and this season led the Aquinas girls to their first appearance at state since 2010.
As such, Collingwood and Harkins are this year’s Miami Herald Water Polo Players of the Year for Broward County.
Collingwood scored 84 goals overall for the season and also finished with 30 assists and 34 steals.
The most crucial element he brought, however, doesn’t appear on the stat sheet.
It was Collingwood’s buy-in to Aquinas’ team philosophy as he joined an already-talented squad led by 2022 Player of the Year
Nicholas Santarsiero and seamlessly made the Raiders even stronger.
“It was super special for all of us after 10 years. It was great. It was always our goal, and it really clicked toward the end,” Collingwood said. “The mentality here is there isn’t one superstar so we all worked together as a team. Everyone played well and everyone contributed when it counted.”
Harkins, who has signed to play at Occidental College in
Los Angeles, shared a similar philosophy on the girls’ team and followed that to success.
She totaled 115 goals, 62 exclusions drawn and 40 assists on offense and defensively finished with 121 steals.
Harkins stopped playing when she was a kid and participated in dance and theater in the years that followed. With her siblings playing the sport, Harkins got the itch to get back in the pool and started playing organized water polo again her freshman season.
She has since played at Aquinas and on travel teams, sometimes playing all around the world.
“Girls’ water polo gets kinda overlooked, but getting to state was a huge accomplishment because I don’t think a lot of people at St. Thomas had seen our team get to state before,” Harkins said.
Andre C. Fernandez: @FernandezAndreC