How do you replace the “Core Four?” Easy, with the “Eager Eight.”
The Palisades High boys varsity water polo team begins its quest for a third straight City Section title with talented players who patiently waited their turn behind four three-year starters who returned the Dolphins’ program to prominence. Now that those seniors have graduated, it is time for their understudies to show they, too, can rule the pool.
Head coach Adam Blakis believes his present squad is even better than the one that went 26-2 on its way to a repeat last season behind leading scorer Luka Kosanin (who had eight goals in the City final), Alex Feizbakhsh, Patrick Huggins and goalie Jake Venckus. In fact, Huggins predicted: “The next wave of guys can actually be better than us because they’ll play together even more. They’re already so good and there’s no limit to how good they can be.”
With junior attackers Zach Senator, Mitchell Kim and Kian Lotfi, sophomore hole setters Gabby Feizbakhsh and Lucas Silva and sophomore set defender Jacob Lazaruk being spelled by sophomore Quinn Godfredsen and senior Griffin Koffman, Pali High could be a dynasty in the making. Starting goalie Blake Levine, a senior transfer from Brentwood, and backup Ross Aronson give the Dolphins depth at every position.
“We beat the starters last year and we’ve got a much deeper team,” Lazaruk said Friday. “We just completed Hell Week, which is really strenuous for all of us, and some of us are out with injuries right now but we should have a good season. We’re like a family — we started together and we’re going to finish together.”
Lazaruk suffered a shoulder injury at the Junior Olympics in July and can’t play to the 10-week. Neither can Levine or Feizbakhsh, who was scheduled to have surgery for his broken wrist on Tuesday. Lotfi is battling a knee injury and Senator was sick with mono but said he feels fully recovered.
“We’re down some players right now so we’ll see what happens but I would definitely love to three-peat,” Senator said. “Quinn [Godfredsen] is moving up and he’s going to see a lot of playing time. He’s also a lefty, which makes him even more effective.”
Kim, the top scorer for Westside Aquatics’ 16U team at the Junior Olympics, knows the Dolphins enter the season as the team to beat in the City but he thinks this year’s group will respond, even with a target on its back: “We’re a much better team,” he said. “What we lack in size we make up for in IQ and with conditioning.”
Pali High opens the season September 5-6 at the Conejo Classic, where the Dolphins placed third last year. They host the Westside Classic on Sept. 19-20 and are also slated to play in the South Bay Tournament in Manhattan Beach in early October.
“A bigger goal for me is for us to do better in the tournaments because those will be our biggest tests,” Senator said. “They are all full of [CIF Southern Section] Division I schools that are way stronger than the teams we’ll face in City.”
Teamwork is perhaps the Dolphins’ greatest strength and Kim, who took up the sport as an eighth-grader at Paul Revere Middle School, attributed that to the starters playing club together.
“This team has more depth and is more well-rounded,” he said. “We move the ball better and run more complex plays.”
Lazaruk wants to create another dynasty at Pali High.
“It’s really important for us to win City and get our third win in a row, because here at Pali we create legacies and we’re looking forward to creating that Pali powerhouse so that when other teams see our name they’re afraid of us,” he said. “I think this year we’re out to kill and we’re ready to win. That’s what we do here at Pali –we win.”
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