George Washington University Athletics
George Washington University
Iona
Men's Water Polo Launches Season at Navy Open
9/3/2021 9:30:00 AM | Water Polo
Buff & Blue to play three games over two days
Aiming to return to the top of the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference, GW men's water polo begins its 2021 fall season this weekend at the Navy Open.
The Buff and Blue will be tested on opening weekend with matchups vs. a pair of ranked squads in No. 3 Cal and No. 14 Princeton, in addition to a clash vs. Iona.
Just ?? more days til our season opener!#RaiseHigh pic.twitter.com/Odc8ekZQY9
— GW Water Polo (@GW_WaterPolo) September 2, 2021
Coming off a truncated spring season, GW heads into the new campaign with a deep roster mixing proven veterans and talented newcomers in its fifth season under Head Coach Barry King.
“What it really comes down to is we’re trying to make each other as good as that person can possibly be,” King said. “While we’re doing that, that’s also going to mean that we’re as good as we can possibly be.”
PROVEN PERFORMERS: GW returns eight of the nine student-athletes who contributed goals during the spring season, as well as impressive goalkeeper Luca Castorina, who stopped 58.9% of the shots that he faced during his rookie season in 2020-21.
A two-time All-Conference selection and former All-American, Andras Levai leads the way in his fifth season in Buff and Blue. The Budapest, Hungary, native starts the fall fourth on the program's all-time points list with 412 via 234 goals and 178 assists and sits just 109 points behind Glauco Souza’s program record total.
The senior class of DJ Davis, Zachary Pendolino, Henry Maas and Nick Schroeder has helped spur the program's recent success, highlighted by the 2018 run to the MAWPC title and its first NCAA win.
Schroeder tied Levai for the team lead in goals during the spring and enters his senior year with 106 career points via 56 goals and 50 assists, while Davis (56 points, 45 steals) and Maas (70 points, 49 steals) have offered production on both ends throughout their careers.
Leading up to the opener, those upperclassmen have already provided a boost with their leadership, according to King.
“As a coach, you really appreciate the knowing, the gravitas that comes along with an established leadership group,” King said. “There isn’t any question about what these guys can give us because of all that they have done for us over the course of their careers."
GOOD IN GOAL: Over a five-game spring season, Castorina quickly emerged as a stalwart between the pipes. The keeper from Catania, Sicily, made 66 saves while allowing just 46 goals. He held the opponent to eight scores or fewer in four of the five contests and tallied at least 12 stops four times.
Castorina has continued to impress throughout the preseason, and his coach has seen the sophomore grow increasingly comfortable as a leader of the defense.
“The next step with Luca is establishing his command of the defensive side so that in the field we’re responding to him, we’re getting into the correct shot-block lanes, we’re helping at the correct places,” King said. “He’s pretty good, and if we’re working together around him to make his job that much easier, we’re going to have a pretty stout defense.”
MAKING A SPLASH: GW will count on its young talent to step up this fall.
Viktor Jovanovic was named to the All-MAWPC Second Team for his strong play as a rookie during the spring, and Kalan Smith and Ford Bruggen also gained valuable experience over the five contests.
King has also brought in six newcomers, a group headlined by Andrija Sekulic, who has represented his native Serbia on the national level.
Leo Lueddemann celebrated a USA Water Polo U-18 Junior Olympic title over the summer with his club team, while Bruno Rebessi brings a unique background with a long list of accolades on the prep level coming out of Florida’s Gulliver Prep and experience playing at a high level for a club in Italy last fall.
That group has been hard at work to get ahead of the learning curve this preseason.
“The good thing is they get tested on a daily basis by a pretty good team, by a group that has established themselves as fairly successful,” King said. “There isn’t that sense of ‘OK, now what do I do?’ Instead, it’s ‘I’m going to listen to that guy because he’s been a here awhile and they’ve been pretty successful.’”
TOUGH TESTS: This weekend’s tournament at Navy is just the start of a challenging fall ahead.
GW is set to play 14 of its 23 regular season games vs. teams ranked among the CWPA preseason top 20, including eight of 11 non-conference contests. The Buff and Blue will face two currently-ranked opponents in each of the first three weekends of the season as they gear up for MAWPC play.
Ranked fifth in the MAWPC preseason poll, GW is set to play home-and-home series vs. the other six teams in the conference before the MAWPC Championship, which is set to be held Nov. 19-21 at Navy.
“We have to prepare ourselves for the conference tournament, and this is the best way to do it – to go out there and get tested and find ways to win tough contests,” King said. “This is going to be by far the best this league’s ever been from top to bottom. Every Princeton and Harvard and Cal that we play outside of our conference schedule is just going to help us be prepared for that onslaught through the conference schedule.”
