By Isabella Disley
The local Capital Wave and Ottawa Titans water polo clubs enjoyed a history-making spring and many star players are now preparing for an exciting summer with Team Ontario and Team Canada.
Titans coach Andras Szeri gave a new water polo meaning to the splash and dash when he led his troops to the senior national championship final and then bolted off to the airport before he could even collect his silver medal last month in Gatineau.
But the trip proved more than worthwhile as the head coach of the under-17 men’s national team led Canada to its first-ever gold medal for that age group at the Pan American Aquatics Championships in Medellin, Colombia. Canada had never before reached the final and last won a bronze medal in 2017.
“Although we were not the favourites going into the tournament, we proved that we deserved this trophy,” Szeri said via Water Polo Canada.
The Canadians won six of their seven round robin games, losing only to Brazil 11-6. They then trounced Argentina 23-4 in the quarterfinals and downed USA 17-11 in the semis to ensure their best-ever finish. Canada then met Brazil for the fourth time in the space of two weeks – having lost each previous match by three to five goals – and finally avenged those defeats with an 11-10 triumph in the championship final.
“The team went through a very positive transformation from the first day of the São Paulo camp to the last day of the competition in Columbia,” Szeri noted. “Winning the gold medal game against Brazil took everything we had, and the team rose to the occasion. We had both excellent individual performances and some very inspiring teamwork.”
While Szeri was the lone local representative on the men’s side, Capital Wave’s Lujayn Abdelfattah, Yasmine Sówka and Alexandra Wilson all helped the Canadian U17 women to a Pan Am silver medal.
Their club also celebrated multiple historic firsts of their own this spring, plus a first-place finish.
The Wave 16U women regained their spot atop the Eastern Canadian championships podium from 2023 after finishing second last year, while the silver-medallist 16U Wave men hit the podium for the first time.
Backed by goalkeeper Sówka, the Wave 16U women won their first match 9-8 over Toronto’s Mavericks and then won five in a row by no less than four goals en route to the gold medal and an overall goal differential of 73-28.
“The first few games that they played, they weren’t playing to their potential, to their best, so we had to redirect them to remind them why they’re playing the sport,” Wave club head coach Rodrigo Rojas told the Ottawa Sports Pages. “They are a talented group, but if they don’t put the work in, the results are not going to come in their favour. That gave them a little bit of a push to want that.”
Among the gold medallists were four players selected to play for Canada at the Sept. 1-7 15U Pan Am Championships in Brazil – Aline Borowiec, Gillian Corkum, Naomi Jones and Fiona Jowsey.
Chosen for the Canadian 15U Pan Am men’s team were Stanley Fraser Anderson (Capital Wave) and Dragos Matei Pirusca (Titans), while the 15U national development teams were well-populated with local players too – Adelle Hircock and Benedikte von Finckenstein (both from the Wave), and Charlotte Bushell and Nikola Tesanovic (Titans).
“I think those girls have been working hard for the past year, so it’s nice to see them get recognized,” Rojas signalled. “But it’s also a [credit to] the other talented girls, those who are not named, that we have in the program. Our program is so competitive that they push each other all the time.
“The athletes are humbled to be selected, and it’s just a stepping stone into what their future holds. We’re in it for the long run. We’re not looking for them to peak at 15 or 16, 17. We want them to be their best when they’re 23, 24, 25 years old.”
The Wave’s Brooklyn Plomp, an NCAA player for Long Beach State University, is a step closer to reaching those peak stages in her career. She’s currently getting ready to represent Canada at the 20U Women’s World Championships from Aug. 10-18 in Brazil.
“She had that mindset from such a young age, and I think she’s one of the ones that has paved the way for our current girls that have made the 17U and the 15U team,” Rojas said of Plomp, who’s been with the Wave since age 10. “Because you say the name ‘Brooklyn’ and all of them remember the type of leader she was and the impact that she had on our girls. She’s had a great impact on our club.
“She had always been playing up, so learning from our older girls, always showing raw talent from the beginning. She had a lot of success making some youth and junior teams when she was two years younger than everybody else.”
The pair of club firsts for the Wave this spring were the 16U men’s team winning four of six matches to claim their first Eastern Canadian podium, and having both their men’s and women’s teams qualify for the 18U nationals.
A total of 37 Wave players will soon be competing for Team Ontario entries at the June 30-July 6 nationals for provincial teams at Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal.
Rojas said that a lot of the Capital Wave’s newfound success stems from becoming the only Canadian dual-sport program, after officially registering as a swim club in 2021.
“It was nice to see that all the work we’ve been doing for the past 3-4 years has paid off,” highlighted Rojas, whose younger sister Valeria also coaches Wave teams. “This was just the result of work done since 2021, so it was great to see the girls succeed in winning gold, and then the boys getting silver.”
Rojas added that head swim coach Fraser Anderson has played a crucial role in the club’s success.
“We work hand-in-hand across most of our programs, and much of the discipline, leadership, and growth our athletes develop at a young age is a direct result of his work,” Rojas underlined.
Titans have multiple hopefuls for World Aquatics Championships men’s team
Szeri’s first order of business before heading off to hit new heights with the Canadian U17 men was to coach the Titan WaterWalkers at the senior nationals at the Centre Sportif de Gatineau.
The WaterWalkers beat teams from Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary to reach the finals before losing to Montreal’s CAMO 19-16, almost duplicating the result of their first meeting in the pool play, 18-16.
Captain David Lapins was named Most Valuable Player of the National Championship League despite the defeat. The honour was a positive sign for the 30-year-old who recently played professionally in Australia as he seeks to represent Canada at the July 11-Aug. 3 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.
“[Lapins] is our hardest-working and most committed athlete, who’s a great role model to the younger players,” Szeri told the Ottawa Sports Pages.
The WaterWalkers lineup features a blend of ages, with the oldest player being 32 and the youngest 17. Most players have been with the Titans since age 9 or 10 and Szeri has coached many since they were teenagers.
For Jackson Taylor, Liam Sterne and Andrej Gavric, it was their first time playing at the senior nationals.
“Every year we lose one or two players to retirement or other obligations, but every year we’re able to fill in those spots with younger, new talent,” explained Szeri, who added 17-year-old Felix Trofinceco, one of the most talented young Canadian players, this season.
“Regardless of the team composition and the age gaps, every year we seem to be able to form a great team that clicks in and out of the pool,” Szeri added. “It’s a tight group and we’re all great friends. That’s another advantage we have over other teams, I feel. We’re a very tight group, and it shows in the water.”
The past connections are crucial to the WaterWalkers’ success, noted Szeri, whose team usually only gathers for NCL competition since players are spread out between Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and sometimes with pro clubs overseas.
“It takes years, even a decade, to build a strong senior program from the ground up. This team is the result of 10 years of work,” indicated Szeri, who won national gold in 2022. “It is very satisfying to get this sort of validation for 10 years of your work. We are very happy with this result. It feels great to be consistently at the top.”
Alongside Lapins, the Titans’ Bogdan Djerkovic, Aleksa Gardijan and Gavric have all been part of the senior national team program recently and will be among the contenders at play at the senior worlds.
“These guys are our success stories, and we are very, very proud of them,” Szeri emphasized. “All homegrown talent that went through the Ottawa Titans programs. These players are the core driving force of the team and the main reason why I’m happy to dedicate so much of my time to this team and the club in general.”
