Miller-Morgan brings home the gold
Waneek Horn-Miller has played water polo at the highest level for Team Canada and has continued to be an active voice in the sporting world – she wants to bring together more Indigenous leaders in sports at the Indigenous Sports Summit. Courtesy Waneek Horn-Miller
Many young athletes might be nervous to attend their first provincial championships – they’ve got a lot to prove, and there’s no way of knowing whether or not a team will have chemistry until they play together.
But anxiety didn’t seem to shake Skawennahawi Miller-Morgan, who joined Team Ontario for her first-ever Water Polo National Provincial Championships in Montreal from July 3-7 and returned home with a gold medal.
“I loved getting to know new people and getting to know how they played, and overall just making chemistry with new people,” Miller-Morgan said.
“Playing in the provincial championships was very stressful, but it was a new learning experience, which was pretty fun.”
Miller-Morgan lives in Ottawa and qualified for Team Ontario back in April this year. The 14-year-old played for the U15 team at the championships, who proved themselves to be the team to beat throughout the competition.
The team started out strong with an 8-8 game against Team Alberta on the first day – but this proved to be the team’s only draw throughout the entire competition, going on to win every other game.
On their second day, they won 8-7 and 18-4 against Team Quebec and Team BC respectively, before going on to storm Team Saskatchewan 18-3 on Friday.
On Saturday, they had a 9-7 victory against Alberta followed by a 13-11 win against BC, before facing Saskatchewan again in the finals – whom they defeated by a clean 10-7.
“It felt awesome to win, because we’ve never played with each other, so it was basically a brand-new team,” Miller-Morgan said. “The fact that we actually won was pretty great.”
Miller-Morgan’s whole family came out to watch the game, including her mother, water polo Olympian Waneek Horn-Miller.
Horn-Miller said that other teams – especially Team Saskatchewan – had some star players, but that conversations with the Team Ontario coaches showed her how much faith staff had in the girls.
“They said that this is the best team in the water and out of the water. They spent all their time together, they had fun, they had great chemistry, and sometimes that’s the deciding factor on how good a team can be,” she said.
“We were just so proud of her. They played really, really well. Everybody stepped up.”
Though Miller-Morgan hadn’t played with the rest of her teammates as Team Ontario before, she said it helped that many of the girls knew one another from other competitions.
“It was pretty easy to bond with the team because we had known each other from other tournaments, so we kind of already knew each other,” she said.
“It was very interesting to play with them and try to find the rhythm for the tournament.”
Horn-Miller said that though every one of her daughter’s games are exciting, this one was particularly meaningful, since it was her first one since being named to the provincial team.
“Watching her play at such a high level and enjoying herself, seeing her having a ball, hanging out, doing all kinds of stuff, that’s what stood out to me,” she said. “It was just so cool seeing her shooting and scoring and learning and being part of a team, the whole thing made me really happy.”
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Miller-Morgan will be starting grade nine in the fall and continuing the high-performance program with her club, Capital Wave. Until then, she’ll be taking a well-deserved rest, spending her summer relaxing and recuperating so she’s in the best form to continue chasing her Olympic dreams.
This article was originally published in print on July 12 in issue 33.28 of The Eastern Door.
