He may have lost the Hyham family challenge—his daughter Marina’s Marist team knocked out La Salle last weekend at the 2021 MAAC Women’s Water Polo Championship—but Tom Hyham, the Explorers’ coach, can look back on a successful season for his women’s team.

For his men, whose program was ended last month with a loss in the 2021 Mid Atlantic Water Polo Conference final—a situation he called “horrible—the news is not nearly so bright.

Welcome to La Salle water polo as it breaks free of the COVID-19 pandemic’s grip.

[La Salle Men’s Water Polo Cancellation a “Shock” for Hyham]

Thanks to a 13-10 win by host Marist over Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in the MAAC title match, a Hyham will be in the NCAAs for the first time. For the family patriarch, his team’s disappointment in Poughkeepsie—Marist edged out La Salle 12-11 in sudden death overtime in the MAAC semifinals—is tempered by the enormous strides his Explorers took this season. La Salle qualified for the postseason for the first time in the program’s five-year history. 11 wins in this abbreviated season—a total of 16 matches (11-5; 6-2 MAAC)—is more than any other campaign. And, with only four seniors on his roster of 17—and 11 underclassmen—the team’s future will only be brighter next year.

Which it will need to if La Salle is to keep up with the MAAC’s most dominant program: Wagner, the six-time defending champion, took the season off due to COVID-19 concerns. That and the rising tide of LIU, the MAAC’s top finisher in the regular season, which withdrew prior to last weekend’s championship.

[Commentary: LIU Water Polo Withdrawal from MAAC Championships Another COVID-19 Casualty]

Following a 12-11 regular season loss to the Sharks—which clinched first place for LIU—on April 24, Hyham responded to questions about the state of the MAAC, the disappointment of losing his men’s team to a departmental restructuring, and how bragging rights in the Hyham household is a VERY serious matter.

- The 2021 MAAC tournament was unlike any we’ve seen ever.

It’s one of the first time that it hasn’t been Wagner and Marist for the [MAAC] Championship—[which is] really great for East Coast water polo. Come next year it’s going to be a different look to East Coast water polo. All the Ivies are going to be back. You’re going to have teams up and coming like La Salle, like LIU. Some of the teams that have been staples at the top are going to have a lot more challenge, which is going to make things more exciting.

- Wagner sitting out this season changed the dynamic in 2021—and allowed an upstart program in its second year to be the top seed in the MAAC this year.

Hat’s off to LIU, for sure. Wagner would have been the hands-down favorite. Marist would have been right there with them—they went on pause for an extremely long time—then coming off and having to play a game basically the same day has put them behind the eight ball.

Which is why I think there’s more parity this year. All of us can taste it—we all know we’re very close in competition with each other.

If nothing else, it’s going to be an exciting championship. It’s not going to be the typical: let’s watch Marist and Wagner play in the [final].

- There’s the Hyham family twist: your La Salle Explorers will face host Marist in the first round—and your daughter Marina is in goal for the Red Foxes.

La Salle’s never been to the championships. This will be the first time, and adding excitement to it, we didn’t get to see Marist this year. Out of all the teams [in the MAAC in 2021] they’re the only one we haven’t played.

We’ll see Marist in the semifinals. I don't know what it’s going to be like. I want my daughter to win a championship… but I also want my team to win one. I’ll be happy if my daughter beats us and ends up winning a championship. I’ll be sad for my team, because I want it more than anything in the world.

We’ll wait and see at game time. Both of us are going to put our competitor hats on and we’re going to battle like we aren’t related.

I’ve been watching Marina—she’s playing really well! It’s like she hasn’t missed a beat. From a goalie perspective, she’s gonna be tough to beat. Plus, they’ve got a lot of talent on that team.

- This is not necessarily a new phenomenon in the Hyham household! Your daughter Marina has occasionally faced off against her sister Kali who’s at Bucknell. How does your wife choose who to root for?

She wears a different shirt each half when they do that—she splits the time. There’s no question she’ll be wearing Marist at the game, because her kids come before her husband. 100% of the time.

If we play, there’ll be some smack talking going on. When we played Bucknell earlier this year there was a week-long talk between my middle daughter and [me]. We played them twice and won one and lost one.

- COVID-19 has cast a long shadow over this women’s season. Do you feel that the teams who are in NCAAs, those that win conference championships—this is a season for asterisks?

It doesn’t feel like an incomplete season. We’ve been in the water since January 17th without any hiccups. The only difference is we’re not playing 35 games—we’re playing in the teens. It’s been exhausting, like a regular season would be.

The emotions of having a team play well and winning a lot of games takes its toll on you. In my last two years—or the season before because last season go cut short—we weren’t practicing next week. We weren’t going to the championships [because] we didn’t have anything to play for. There’s less pressure involved in that.

Now that we’re winning games and are one of the teams to go, there’s a lot of sleeplessness. There’s a lot more game planning—different stuff that we don’t have to do in a regular season. All 17 girls are involved in that. They get the same exhaustion because it’s everything—it’s not just practice.

That’s why this season feels complete. There may be other teams that feel differently. LIU’s a perfect example. They [played] seven games. We’ve got double that.

- Your men’s team program is sunsetting with a win over George Washington in the Mid Atlantic Water Polo Conference Championships last month. How bittersweet is this conclusion to the Explorer men’s time in East Coast water polo, especially in light of your women’s success?

I always expected my women’s team to improve. Our five-year plan has us doing some pretty great things—and we may be ahead of it because of this situation.

Losing my men’s team, it’s horrifying—there’s nothing nice about it.

The benefits that the women’s teams is getting because of the adjustments our AD made is something to be spoken of. For me, I have one team to coach rather than two—which is obviously easier to focus on.

I would have never said I want to lose a team, but now that it’s happened, I’ve accepted it and I’m looking at the silver linings—what’s going to benefit [my women’s] team going forward.

The men finished their season—yeah, I could have asked for championships—the fact that they played it all the way through and made it to [the MAWPC] championship is a testament to their will to play.