Pali High Water Polo Defends Westside Classic Title

Saturday afternoon’s championship game of the fourth annual Westside Classic seemed a little anticlimactic, but no one on the Palisades High varsity water polo team seemed to mind.

The Dolphins did just what they expected to do, controlling play from the opening sprint in a 13-8 victory over Culver City and defending their title at Brentwood School.

Fittingly, juniors Zach Senator  and Kian Lotfi led the way with four goals and three assists apiece and Griffin Koffman added three goals in the final.

“Last year Zach and I developed sort of a dynamic duo — both of watch a lot of sports like basketball and soccer, which helps us with our vision,” Lotfi said. “We did very well this tournament and got our bench some good playing time. We knew we had a strong chance to win it again. We lost a lot of our starters from last year but I think over the summer playing JOs (Junior Olympics) helped us develop. We have a lot of experience playing with each other.”

Senator was the tournament’s high scorer, netting 15 goals with 15 steals, 12 assists and five drawn penalties in four games. Lotfi had 11 goals, eight assists and eight steals, Koffman had seven goals, Lucas Silva had six goals and nine steals, Quinn Godfredsen had six goals, eight steals and seven assists and Mitchell Kim finished tallied five goals and nine steals, Nick Frey had three goals, Greg Vitous and Eli Ackerman each had two goals and Sammy Speiser had one  for the Dolphins, who finished first in group play after defeating Eagle Rock 18-1, Santa Monica’s junior varsity 15-3 and Westlake 8-4 to earn a spot in the first-place game.

Goalies Ross Aronson (12 saves) and Matt Affeld (nine saves) were steady in net for the Dolphins, who co-hosted the two-day tournament with Brentwood. Friday’s games were played at Maggie Gilbert Aquatic Center.

“I had no idea we won it last year, but if I’d known it definitely would’ve been motivation to win it again,” said Aronson, a junior who has played the position since joining Westside Aquatics’ team in eighth grade. “I like goalie because I can see everything that’s going on. We’re still missing Jacob Lazaruk, Gabe Feizbakhsh and [goalie] Blake Levine and when they come back, we’ll be even better.”

Kim cited Westlake as the Dolphins’ toughest opponent and believes the tournament is a good measuring stick going into Monday’s first league game at LACES.

“This is definitely a boost to our confidence because it shows we can compete with the best,” Kim said. “We used it also as training because we need to be in the best shape possible to win City.”

The Dolphins’ offense is predicated on ball movement: “Our plays are designed to get the ball into the hole set, but we need to be able to pass it around and make shots from the outside too,” Kim said.

Led by Palisadians Harrison Cates,  Ryan Bub and goalie Austin Jones, Brentwood was second behind Culver City in group play and finished fourth overall.