Volunteer scorer onboarding: the 5-minute version

By Eggbeater Water Polo · May 7, 2026 · 11 min read

If a spectator walked up to the desk five minutes ago and was handed a tablet, this is the article we’d want them to read first. No theory, no rule trivia — just open the app, score the game, end it, go watch your kid. Bookmark this on the tablet before tournament day.

1. What you’re actually doing at the desk

You’ve been handed a tablet. Maybe also a stopwatch and a clipboard. A coach is yelling something at you from the bench. There’s a kid in the stands waving. Welcome to the desk.

Your job is simpler than it looks: tap a button when something happens in the pool. A goal. A save. A foul. A kickout. The app handles everything downstream — the score, the player stats, the public box score, the standings, the bracket. You don’t have to do math, write anything down, or remember anything from one game to the next. You just observe and tap.

Here’s the actual list of things you are responsible for, in priority order:

1. The score is correct. If goals are scored, you tap Goal. If a goal gets disallowed, you tap Undo or Delete. The score on the tablet should always match the score on the deck.
2. The clock period is right. Each quarter end, you tap to advance the period. Eggbeater shows Q1, Q2, ½ Time, Q3, Q4, SO — match what’s actually happening in the pool.
3. Major fouls are logged. Kickouts (KO) and Common Fouls get tapped so the box score reflects who’s in foul trouble.
4. Saves and steals if you have time. These build the player stats. Nice to have, not critical to the result of the game.
5. End the game. When the final buzzer goes, tap End Game and confirm — the score locks. If the host has turned on referee sign-off (off by default), the head ref enters their name to finalize.

Everything else — assists, sprint wins, field blocks, FBU steals, Inside-2m saves — is gravy. If you can capture them, the box score gets richer. If you can’t, the score is still correct and the game is still scored. Don’t beat yourself up about missing a steal because you were getting the goal logged.

2. The 5-minute walkthrough

Here’s the actual sequence of what you do, start to finish.

1. Open the Eggbeater app and go to the Scores tab. If it’s not already installed, the tournament director will have set up a home-screen icon. Just tap it, then tap Scores along the bottom.
2. Tap “Login to Score.” This is the button on the Scores tab that puts the app into scoring mode instead of spectator mode.
3. Answer “What are you scoring?” Pick Tournament / League if you’re at a tournament or league desk, or My Club for a regular club game. Both broadcast the score live — the choice just tells Eggbeater which game stream you’re on.
4. Enter the scoring password. The director hands this out at the start of the shift. It’s what unlocks scoring mode and prevents accidental edits by spectators.
5. The board opens directly on the live game. No “find your game on the schedule” step — Eggbeater drops you straight onto the right game, with the period and clock auto-seeded and both teams already on the correct sides with the correct cap colors. You’ll see the home/away score, the period, the clock, and the action buttons.
6. Tap the action buttons as plays happen. Goal → tap Goal → tap the scorer’s cap number → tap the assist (or Skip). Save → tap Save → tap the goalie. Excl → tap Excl → tap the player → confirm Kickout vs Common Foul. (Section 3 has the full cheat sheet.)
7. Tap Next Period at the end of each quarter. Q1 → Q2 → ½ Time → Q3 → Q4. If the score is tied at the end of Q4 and the tournament rules call for a shootout, change the period to SO.
8. Tap End Game when the final buzzer goes. You’ll see a review screen with the final score and box score. Confirm everything looks right, then confirm to send it to History. The score locks and you’re done.
9. If sign-off is on, hand the tablet to the head referee. Referee sign-off is an option the host turns on (off by default, official Tournament / League feed only). When it’s on, End Game adds a sign-off field — the ref enters their name to finalize, and a green “✓ Signed off by [name]” pill appears on the public page.

That’s the entire workflow. Four taps to open the live game, a tap per play to score it, and one step to lock it. Most volunteers have it down by the second period.

3. Action button cheat sheet

Here are the buttons you’ll see on the score screen, what they mean, and what they ask you for next.

You will not need every button every game. Goal, Save, Excl, and Undo are the four you’ll use constantly. The rest are for richer stats; capture them if you can keep up.

4. Picker modifiers — the checkboxes that matter

When you tap an action button, the player picker often has small checkboxes underneath the cap-number grid. These are modifiers that turn a basic Goal into a 6-on-5 power-play goal, or a basic Save into an Inside-2m save. They’re optional but they make the box score much richer.

For the deep dive on every stat and what each modifier means, see our water polo stats explained guide. It’s the canonical reference for the abbreviations on the box score.

5. Common mistakes and how to fix them

Every volunteer makes these mistakes. The fix is almost always Undo or Delete.

6. End Game flow (and optional referee sign-off)

The last 30 seconds of your shift are the most important. When the final buzzer goes:

1. Tap End Game. Eggbeater shows a review screen with the final score, the period scores, and the full box score for both teams.
2. Skim the review screen. Final score correct? Period scores add up? Both goalies have non-zero saves (assuming both faced shots)? If anything looks wrong, this is your chance to fix it before locking.
3. Confirm to end. By default that’s the whole step — tap to confirm and the score locks; the standings update and the bracket pulls in the result.
4. If sign-off is on, hand the tablet to the head referee. Referee sign-off is optional and off by default — the host turns it on for the official Tournament / League feed (it never applies to My Club games). When it’s on, End Game adds a sign-off field: the ref types their name and taps Sign Off, and the public game page gets a green “✓ Signed off by [name]” pill with the timestamp. Confirm that pill is visible on the public page (the same URL families are watching); if it’s not, the sign-off didn’t go through — try again.

That’s it. The game is locked; the standings update; the bracket pulls in the result. You’re free to grab a coffee.

7. What the public page shows

You’ve just spent 45 minutes tapping buttons. What did the rest of the tournament see?

• Live score updated within ~5 seconds of each tap. Spectators in the stands and grandparents at home are watching the same numbers you’re tapping.
• Live box score for both teams — every goal, save, exclusion attributed to a specific player.
• Period-by-period scoring summary so spectators can see the flow of the game (who led at the half, who broke it open in the 4th).
• Game timeline — a chronological list of every event you logged, like a mini play-by-play.
• Standings update the moment you tap End Game. The pool table reflects the new W/L record and the goal-differential math.
• Bracket reveal — if this was a bracket-determining game, the next round populates with the winner immediately.
• Push notifications — families who follow this team get pinged when the game ends with the final score.

That’s why the desk job matters: you are, in real time, the entire data layer between the kids in the pool and the families across the country watching from a phone. No pressure.

The TL;DR

Open the app, unlock the game, tap buttons when things happen, end the game (and get the referee to sign off, if the host turned that on). Everything else is gravy. If you remember nothing else, remember Goal, Save, Excl, Undo — those four buttons handle 90% of a normal water polo game. You can learn the rest as you go.