South Florida Athletes make appearances at senior Nationals
This past weekend the annual Senior Nationals Tournament was held, a massive annual tournament that draws out the best athletes in the country. Former Olympians such as Alex Bowen, Ryder Dodd and Hannes Daube, current pro athletes such as Sergi Cabanas who recently finished his season at Dubrovnik, Joao Pedro who competed with OSC Budapest, the tournament even hosted some legends of the water polo game such as legendary goalkeeper Viktor Nagy, a stalwart between the pipes for the Hungarian national team for over a decade and widely considered as one of the greatest goalkeepers of the modern game, as well as Denes Varga, the legendary sharpshooter of the Hungarian national team who dominated professional and international competitions for nearly 20 years.
Incredibly for us at South Florida Water Polo Club, two of our very own athletes earned deserved spots on two rosters competing on the weekend. Max Zelikov, Boca Raton High School alum and Stanford University, class of 2028, found himself competing for the USA Junior team, while Marcell Varhalmi, current Saint Thomas Aquinas High School student and class of 2027, was one of the goalkeepers for the two USA Youth teams.
Max was a big part of the USA Junior team’s success, in four games Max totaled 5 goals, 3 assists and 2 steals as the USA Junior Team cruised through their first game 22-8 against the USA Youth Red team, then found a closer match against Long Beach State University winning the game 18-14, in the semifinal game the USA Junior team found themselves against the formidable Olympic Club, led by National League legends such as Paul Reynolds and Colin Mulcahy, however, the USA Junior team prevailed with an impressive 16-13 win. And on Sunday the Junior team found themselves in a battle against the Los Angeles Aquatics Club, a team consisting of many UCLA athletes from the current collegiate championship winning team, as well as several collegiate stars, the LA team was spearheaded by the legend himself Denes Varga. At halftime, the Junior team was down 10-6 but began clawing back goals thanks to efforts by Max’s teammates Ryder Dodd, Ryan Ohl and Ben Liechty. But with just under 3 minutes left in the third quarter and the USA Junior team down 13-9, it was Max who came up huge putting away a tidy lob shot that sparked a monstrous comeback. The USA Junior team was able to tie the game just before going into the fourth quarter 13-13 and in the fourth quarter the Junior team shut the lights out on the Los Angeles based team, Max put away a second goal to extend the score at the time from 14-13 to 15-13 in the USA Junior team’s favor and proved instrumental in the team taking home the gold at Senior Nationals.
Max will be hoping his efforts prove fruitful as the USA Junior team will soon make its selection for the team that will represent them at this year’s U20 World Championships held in Zagreb, Croatia between June 14th to June 21st.
While Max was putting away big goals, it was our very own current 18u club goalkeeper, Marcell that was doing his best to keep the goals out of the cage for the USA Youth teams. During the tournament Marcell, as all the Youth teams selected athletes, were double rostered, meaning they could play for both teams, depending on the coach’s decision pregame. Marcell competed in 5 games on the weekend and amassed 36 saves, 10 steals and 1 assist, this is while playing against the highest level competition he has competed against in his life, taking on shoots from world-class shooters such as Alex Bowen, a three time Olympian for the USA national team who is regarded as one of the top right handed shooters in the world. Though the scores may have not indicated it, Marcell distinguished himself with several impressive timely stops, certainly keeping out extra goals.
As previously mentioned in another article, Marcell will be traveling with the USA Youth National Team to Italy at the end of June for a training and competition.
