In a sport the place physicality and expertise matter in worldwide competitors, the U.S. males’s water polo team revealed on Tuesday {that a} roster spot for the Olympic Games in Paris has been given to 18-year-old JSerra High graduate Ryder Dodd, making him the youngest within the trendy period to play on the team.
“As a kid growing up playing water polo, this is a dream come true,” Dodd mentioned.
He and brother Chase, each UCLA college students, are on a 13-man team that’s loaded with Southern California merchandise and consists of 10 gamers who performed on the Tokyo Olympic Games.
“Amazing,” Chase, 21, mentioned of getting to play in Paris with Ryder. “I don’t think there’s words to describe how it feels having someone you grew up with every day to go out with you on the world’s biggest stage. It’s insane.”
Ryder led JSerra to the Southern Section Open Division championship and was thought of the No. 1 water polo participant within the nation. He signed with UCLA and will start courses within the fall. All-time nice Tony Acevedo was 18 when he performed within the 2000 Olympic Games and former Harvard-Westlake standout Ben Hallock, the captain for this 12 months’s team, was 18 when he was first named to the Olympic team.
“It’s about staying in the present,” Hallock mentioned of the challenges an 18-year-old faces on the Olympic team. “He’s going to college in three months. There’s distractions.”
Hallock, 26, and Johnny Hooper, 26, had been standouts at Harvard-Westlake throughout their highschool days earlier than shifting on to Stanford and Cal, respectively.
Rich Corso, who was head coach for Team USA on the 1996 Games, has seen the 6-foot, 205-pound Ryder play in worldwide competitions.
“He’s got fantastic end-to-end speed and is a physical player and is tenacious,” Corso mentioned.
Water polo powers UCLA, USC, Stanford and Cal are nicely represented on the team.
Other former native highschool gamers are goalie Adrian Weinberg (Cal), who graduated from Oaks Christian, Hannes Daube (USC) attended Orange Lutheran, Chase Dodd, who went to Huntington Beach, Max Irving (UCLA), who graduated from Long Beach Wilson, and Marko Vavic (USC), who performed for Loyola.
