Throughout the past couple months, the boys water polo team has been hard at work. With only three previous seasons in Oak Park history the young program was looking to find growth.

“We improved our basic water polo fundamentals and also the way we respond to stressful plays or games,” senior set guard and captain Trey Williams said. “We learned how to adapt to each other’s playing styles and find success.”

Coming off of the previous season, the team was aiming to beat opponents who they’d never beat before. They succeeded in doing that.

“Winning against Thousand Oaks 7-4 was particularly memorable,” senior right wing Artemus Nguyen said. “It shows that the program has improved a lot since its first season which is really cool to see.”

One thing that has helped the program grow has been their new coaching staff. After the previous head Coach Ricky Mulcahey retired, the school quickly found qualified replacements. Starting this year, former college players have been added to the coaching staff.

“Coach Braden Sanders is our head coach and Casey Surber is our assistant coach,” sophomore and wings player Amir Pourmohammadi said. “They were really tough on us but they were our biggest supporters and believed in us the most.”

The coaches prepared the team for the season by having them undergo lots of conditioning. They also brought new coaching tactics which took the team to the next level.

“Depending on the players that we knew about heading into the game, we would assign certain players who were familiar with how they played to guard them for much of the match,” Nguyen said. “Addionally, our coaches would tell us who to watch out for in case we needed to drop and help whoever was guarding them.”

In addition to the new coaches, incoming freshmen have brought a new feeling to the team’s chemistry.

“This year we had three prominent freshmen who joined the team. Theo Huzinschi, Kelvin Sheng, and Ethan Berenson,” Pourmohammadi said. “They are all club water polo players and became starters for our team. Even though they are young, they really stood out to me as hardworking and diligent. They performed amazing this season and I am excited to see what they can do in the future”.

After a great first season under the new coaches the team is excited about what they can do with the new foundation of the program. 

“I’m most excited to see how our team will do without our seniors,” said Pourmohammadi. “A large portion of our team is seniors but I’m confident in our program’s ability to cover the loss.”