Water Polo Wants to Regain City Title

Palisades High’s boys water polo team entered this season in a very unfamiliar position. The Dolphins are used to being the hunted, but now they are the hunters after seeing their run of 11 straight City titles come to an end with an 11-4 loss to Cleveland in the section finals last fall.

That marked Palisades’ first playoff defeat in 13 years and snapped a 43-game postseason winning streak—then the longest active streak by any team in any sport in the City. Two of the best players during the Dolphins’ decade-long dynasty—Theo Trask and Oliver Grant—are now coaching their alma mater and while the long-term goal is getting the program back to a championship level, they are realistic about     how long it will take.

The team has been practicing at the north pool and student activities center at UCLA. On Monday the Dolphins will start practicing at 6 a.m. at Santa Monica High, where they will be until the end of the season. Last weekend, they participated in the Malibu Classic, finishing 1-3 at a tournament they used to dominate.     

“Not being able to use our pool has been tough but the biggest factor is our youth,” said Trask, who recorded a program single-season record 123 steals as a senior in 2018 while captaining the Dolphins to their seventh straight title. “We only have two seniors, Sean [Ellis] and Arjun [McIntosh] and six juniors. The rest are sophomores and we even have a freshman [Kai Gundershaug]. Two other players transferred out so we’re a younger, less experienced team than we’ve been in years past. You could say that we’re more motivated because we’re no longer the champions. It’s a two-year project. Cleveland is the favorite, but I’ll be very surprised if it’s not us and them in the finals.”

After dropping its first pool play game to Malibu 9-2 last Thurday, the Dolphins came from behind to stun Villanova Prep 13-12 on a length-of-the-pool shot by co-captain Oliver Ghiassi as the clock ran out. Sophomore driver Reed Winters led the charge with six goals and Ellis added four. The Dolphins closed out the tournament Saturday with losses to Thousand Oaks and Oak Park and dropped to 6-6 overall.     

Next is the Long Beach Poly Tournament this weekend. Rounding out the roster are goalkeepers Aidan Moriarty and Conor Durcan; driver Isaac Tishbi;  hole sets Hudson Mirzadeh, David Nance and Max Szymanski; and utilities Eli Benyamini, Fyodor Petrov, Eros Martinez, David Santiago and Joshua Wood.