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The joint team formed by Zug, Aegeri, and Horgen won the U17 Women’s Championship. The league is a double round-robin tournament in which every team plays all others once at home and once away.
The teams participating are joint teams of the NL Women’s teams, with the addition of players from Geneve Natation and SM Zürich.
The league is marked as “U17plus,” as two 19-year-old players per team are allowed.
The initiative is positive as young girls have more chances to play than in the U15 or U17 men’s leagues.
While we all expected the WSV Basel / WK Thun team to be the dominant force of the league, the “Hirzel connection” team coached by Norbert Kerschbaum was able to win all games.
This is a positive result obtained by athletes playing for senior teams currently at the bottom of the league and fighting for the last place in the women’s playoffs.
It’s already the second title as a coach for Norbert Kerschbaum this year after the win in the U11 championship co-coaching the team of Aegeri/Aquastar.
The players in the team mostly know each other from the youth national team’s practices and attended the games with little preparation.
A missed opportunity?
The execution of youth women’s leagues in Switzerland has always been complex. The main problem is the number of female youth players, which can have different reasons in a sport solely played by men until the 80s. Due to this underdevelopment, women’s water polo in Switzerland has vast potential.
The open question is whether today’s U20 and U17 women’s leagues are best suited for developing young talents in Switzerland. Our opinion is that it can be improved. The main reasons are:
- The biology of aging is different in men and women. Women generally undergo puberty earlier than males. This earlier physical maturation can lead to improved strength, endurance, and overall athletic performance at a younger age than male athletes. It’s not uncommon to see 15-16-year-old players with good playing time in the senior league. Anouk Solder of WK Thun and Amy Nussbaumer from Zug/Aegeri are good examples. At 18 years old, a woman is not seen anymore as a youth player. Therefore we question if the U20 League is necessary or redundant to the NL Women League.
- Is adding the two 19-year-old players to the U17 women league necessary? Other than giving playing time to players already playing in the U20 and Women league, it will prevent coaches from letting the youngest girls play.
- The negative note was the lack of federation representatives to hand out gold medals in the last championship game in Horgen, where Zug-Aegeri-Horgen was already mathematically first ranked. It’s a missed opportunity to demonstrate that the league counts and to show the athletes the respect they deserve.
Conclusion
The women’s youth leagues are a positive development, and the joint teams are necessary to play 7on7. Although a female U15 and a pure U17 women’s league could be possible alternatives to make the development of young players more effective and motivate coaches and club representatives to start scouting girls at an earlier age.
U17 Women Ranking 2023
| Pos | Team | PpG | Pts | T | W | D | L | G+ | G- | DIFF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Zug – Aegeri – Horgen U17 Women | 2.00 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 76 | 15 | 61 |
| 2 |  WSV Basel / WK Thun U17 Women | 1.33 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 53 | 30 | 23 |
| 3 |  Lausanne – Genéve – Carouge U17 Women | 0.67 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 34 | 51 | -17 |
| 4 |  WBK SM Zürich / SC Winterthur U17 Women | 0.00 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 15 | 82 | -67 |
Top Scorers U17 Women 2023
| Rank | Player | Team | Age |  | Goals per Game |  |  |  | Appearances | Win Ratio | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nadia Schildknecht | | 19 | 17 | 2.83 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 100.00 |
| 2 | Amy Nussbaumer | | 18 | 14 | 2.33 | 11 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 100.00 |
| 3 | Anouk Soder |  | 17 | 14 | 4.67 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 100.00 |
| 4 | Hannah Otenyi |  | 20 | 12 | 2.00 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 66.67 |
| 5 | Nina Mikulic | | 17 | 11 | 2.20 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 100.00 |
| 6 | Fiona Jenkinson |  | 18 | 11 | 1.83 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 33.33 |
| 7 | Emma Schäfer | | 17 | 8 | 1.33 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 33.33 |
| 8 | Tasja Haselwander | | 18 | 8 | 2.67 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 33.33 |
| 9 | Jana Stucki | | 15 | 7 | 1.17 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 66.67 |
| 10 | Fabienne Volken | | 17 | 7 | 1.17 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 100.00 |
