Prepare to hear the last name “Saponjic” over and over when the Cal men’s water polo team scores in 2011. Starting this fall, Aleksa will join his older brother, Luka – a 48-goal scorer last year – for their only shot to win a national title together.
One of the more promising talents of this year’s recruiting class, the 6-for-3 Aleksa plays attacker just like his brother and the two Belgrade, Serbia natives could potentially see a lot of playing time together in the coming season.
“He’s a kid that can make an immediate impact in college right now,” Bears coach Kirk Everist said of Aleksa. “He has great end to end speed, excellent size, and is a very good perimeter shooter so I think he’ll translate to our team pretty well.”
Aleksa was a member of the 2010 Serbian League Champion Partizan Water Polo Club and will continue to play with them through the summer. He will likely need some time to adjust to the differences between NCAA and international water polo, but the younger Saponjic should get plenty of good advice.
“Getting used to the difference is always difficult but I anticipate with the experience of his brother and Ivan (Rackov), he’ll have a good understanding of what the distances are,” Everist said.
The Saponjic brothers and Rackov — the reigning Cutino Award winner — all played together in their native Serbia, which should greatly help Aleksa ease into the team chemistry. Watch out for this dangerous scoring trio in the fall.
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