Zero losses in 12 games. The winner of the Elite 8 Tournament. Two trophies in seven days. It’s a promising start with promising numbers for a boys’ water polo team that is showing a lot of – you guessed it – promise.
The Wolverines ran the table in the inaugural S&R Elite 8 water polo tournament, which Harvard-Westlake hosted. En route to a tournament victory, the Wolverines defeated Cathedral Catholic, Loyola, Sacred Heart, Huntington Beach and Mater Dei.
The championship game served as a stage for a breakout performance from Alex Bucur ’19, who scored three times for the Wolverines.
While many were caught off guard by Bucur’s play, Aquatics Program Head Brian Flacks was unsurprised, though not unimpressed.
“I keep getting asked about Alex, and everyone’s like, ‘Who’s this kid? Who’s this kid? Who’s this kid?’,” Flacks said. “It’s not something that’s new to me. I see this kid every day in practice; he’s clearly very talented. It was [only a matter of] when he was going to come out of his shell a little bit, and I think he had a really good weekend.”
Flacks said he felt that his team’s discipline was the key to victory.
“I thought we stayed composed,” Flacks said. “I thought Mater Dei was clearly very physical, and I thought we did a good job of staying composed and staying out of foul trouble, which is important, and we did a good job of getting [the other team] into foul trouble.”
There were 22 exclusions called against Mater Dei, as opposed to five against the Wolverines. Five different players fouled out for the Monarchs.After emerging from the South Coast Tournament a week later as the victors, the Wolverines have even more proverbial laurels upon which to rest. And yet, the team refuses to do so.
“[A 12-0 start] is obviously good, but it’s nowhere near our ultimate goal,” Spencer Towill ’17 said. “At this point, it just adds fuel to our fire and motivates us to push ourselves to the limit.”
He expressed similar sentiments about winning the Elite Eight tournament. While no one has been able to stop the Wolverines thus far, Towill knows they have potential weaknesses and more importantly, knows how to address them.
“There are a lot of teams out there who have a ton of natural athleticism, which we also do, but a couple have more than we do,” Towill said. “What we lack in athleticism we beat them with by using hard work and mental engagement. We practice every day and swim to the hardest of our abilities, but most of us pride ourselves in being the smartest team. Even with tons of natural skill, it is hard to beat someone who knows everything you are going to do and exactly how to beat it.”