Water Polo Makes Splash at Pali High

There's a new sport starting up at this fall and it's only fitting that the person hired to pilot the ship is a Palisadian and a former player. The sport is boys water polo and Westside Aquatics Director Adam Blakis is getting his feet wet as the coach.

"This is the sport I absolutely loved growing up, so I'm really excited to be coaching it here," said Blakis, who picked up the game when he was 11 and played competitively for the next 25 years, including at Santa Monica High School and UC Riverside. "I last coached at L.A. Trade Tech about four years ago, so I'm looking forward to coaching water polo again. Before the pool was built on campus it was established that Palisades would have a team, so the athletic department has been super supportive."

All told, 63 boys tried out for the squad and Blakis has since whittled his roster down to 22 players, 15 of whom are underclassmen. As a first-year program, Palisades will field only a varsity team this season. Blakis has been holding two practices a day (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) in order to get his team in shape and in sync.

"We have a lot of talent, it's just unrefined," said Blakis, who moved to Pacific Palisades two years ago and formerly coached the swim teams. "Our strength is our speed. Having such a strong swim program helps because we have a lot of fast swimmers. It helps that the boys are very motivated. They want to learn and they want to succeed."

Though Blakis is still tinkering with the lineup and positions, projected starters are seniors Gabriel Connolly (driver) and Danny Hernandez (driver), junior Anton Pronichenko (driver), sophomores Patrick Huggins (hole set) and Tristan Marsh (sprinter) and freshman Griffin Koffman (driver). Tenth-graders Jake Venckus and Ben Kent are the goalies.

"I played on Adam's [Westside Aquatics] club team in the winter and I enjoyed it," said Marsh, a standout on the Palisades High swim team and in the . "I like being on defense."

Fellow sophomore and Will Rogers Junior Lifeguard Jeff Goldsmith is one of the players trying the sport for the first time and likes the fast pace and "team" aspect of the game.

"It's the second week and already I'm eating three times as much as normal," Goldsmith said. "It looked like fun and a friend of mine was playing so I decided to give it a try."

Six sophomores are from the Westwood Recreation Center, where they got experience playing over the summer. They are Venckus, Huggins, Luka Kosanin, Matthew Rahnama, Sebastien Ryter and Ryan Moossighi. 

"There were three sets of tryouts and we're practicing really hard to get ready," said Moossighi, who lives in Brentwood and has played the sport in the Rec League the past two summers. "We've been scrimmaging against each other a lot. It's nice being part of a high school team."  

Blakis established Westside Aquatics in 2004. In addition to Palisades High, the club program has locations in Santa Monica and Malibu. It offers group and private swim lessons and sends swimmers to Junior Olympic meets in February.

"[Swim coach] asked if I would coach water polo or find someone who could," Blakis said. "So this is good. I'm happy to doing it."

Assisting Blakis at team practices is former Dolphins swimmer Slava Agafonoff, a recent graduate of UCLA. "It's great to see them starting their own program," he said after refereeing an intrasquad game. "We didn't have water polo when I was going here and we were using the Y [Temescal] pool."

Rounding out the roster are seniors Sam Elias, Max Morrison and Henry Siegel, junior Max King, sophomores Brandon Manavi, Michael Lukasiak and Max Babcock and freshmen Eros Valencia and Sam Schoemann.

Many players are still learning the rules and the positions, so Blakis has no illusions about his team winning a championship its first year.

"I'd be really happy of we win a game and play teams close," Blakis said. "This is a sport where it takes time to learn the intricacies and finer points, so it's unrealistic to think that we'll be able to beat the more experienced programs right off the bat."       

There are now 25 schools with boys water polo programs in the City Section, divided into three divisions and six leagues. Palisades is in the Coast Division, which consists of the Western League (Banning, Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, Venice and Palisades) and the Coliseum League (Crenshaw, Fremont, Manual Arts, West Adams). Teams will play each league opponent twice (one home, one away).

All home games are scheduled for 2:45 p.m. at the .

Palisades will also field a girls team in the winter.

2011 PALIHI BOYS WATER POLO SCHEDULE

Sept. 14 vs. Taft
Sept. 16 @ Los Angeles
Sept. 19 vs. Van Nuys
Sept. 26 @ LACES*
Sept. 28 vs. Banning*
Oct. 3 vs. Venice*
Oct. 5 @ Fremont*
Oct. 10 @ Venice*
Oct. 12 vs. LACES*
Oct. 17 vs. Manual Arts*
Oct. 19 vs. Crenshaw*
Oct. 24 vs. Banning*
Oct. 26 @ West Adams*

* League/Division game

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