LA JOLLA \u2013 Stefano Mattesini was talking about why he coaches water polo.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Italy (where the La Jolla Country Day coach is from), it\u2019s the third sport. Everybody wants to do soccer. Then, basketball is number two.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo play water polo, you have to have a passion for it. When I was 10, I was already enrolled in a swim program in Florence. I said, \u2018Mom, I want to play water polo. Swimming is boring.\u2019 I see kids playing on the other side and it looks like fun. There\u2019s a lot of action. So, that\u2019s how I started in water polo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mattesini and his assistant coach, Lucas Romaguera, are dealing with a similar situation. They have a small cadre of players on the boys team: Six play on club teams and the school team year-round. The local water polo community is very cross-bred \u2013 Romaguera, the assistant, and Mattesini both coach for the La Jolla United club year-round. <\/p>\n
But the others on the LJCD team only play for the school, and are basically learning the sport. How do you build that passion, get them to stick with the sport and love it?<\/p>\n
Aaron Kalish, the backup goalie to starter\/club player Alan Wornovistzky, a junior who used to play for the Del Mar club, might be a good test case. \u201cI haven\u2019t played that much. I\u2019m working on strength in the pool,\u201d says the sophomore.<\/p>\n
Asked how he is doing on staying high in the goal to block shots, he says, \u201cThe egg-beater \u2013 it\u2019s hard at first. But I\u2019m getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theodor Nordgaard, another junior, one of three in the Torreys\u2019 core who plays for La Jolla Shores, explains: \u201cI try to show (the newer players) the basics. Specifically, I try to show Daniel (Rianhard, a junior) how to play the \u2018one\u2019 position (the 1-2 players are at the far left on offense in the rectangle) and guard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am helping teach Daniel how to catch the ball (in one hand) and shoot. Necessities, you might call it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked who he foresees making incremental changes to grow in the game, Nordgard says, \u201cDaniel. I enjoy playing with him on the 1-2 side. And Max (Marchbanks, a sophomore).\u201d<\/p>\n
After Country Day\u2019s first four games, 11th-grader Nick Mogul had 18 goals and 18 steals. The 6 foot 4 inch tall 16-year-old (\u201cI\u2019m still growing\u201d), who plays in the offseason for Shores, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve been good so far. We work really hard as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cI love the companionship of playing on a team. I love water polo. I started at age 8. We won the Junior Olympics when I was younger.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as studies at LJCD, he says: \u201cI enjoy history. What\u2019s happened and its impact and what\u2019s going to happen in the future. For example? AI. It goes all the way back to radio and TV. In 10 years, I believe we\u2019re all going to have AI agents. We have to be creative.\u201d<\/p>\n
READ NEXT\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LA JOLLA \u2013 Stefano Mattesini was talking about why he coaches water polo. \u201cIn Italy (where the La…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":242252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,10505,2961,115733,224,5337,3549,129286],"class_list":{"0":"post-242251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-exclude-homepage","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-jolla-country-day","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-water-polo"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115238515754170821","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}