BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Five Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) and 10 Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) athletes were named to the 2023 Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) Men’s Division I All-America Team.
A subjective selection of the ACWPC’s membership which elected to nominate and vote, the list includes 58 athletes (eight First Team, eight Second Team, eight Third Team, 34 Honorable Mention) from 24 institutions (Brown University, Bucknell University, Fordham University, Harvard University, Iona University, Long Beach State University, Loyola Marymount University, Pepperdine University, Princeton University, San Jose State University, Santa Clara University, Stanford University, United States Air Force Academy, United States Naval Academy, University of California, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Southern California, University of the Pacific).
The 2023 Player and Coach of the Year awards will be announced on Friday, December 22.
Among the NWPC teams, Princeton and Brown tied with the most selections (three), while Harvard and Iona both garnered pairs. Fordham (two), Navy (two) and Bucknell (one) account for the five MAWPC picks.
Leading the team is Princeton’s Roko Pozaric (Jr., Zagreb, Croatia/Gimnazija Titusa Brezovackog) who garners his third All-America nod with First Team honors in 2023 after helping the Tigers to the NWPC title. A 2021 Third Team and 2022 Second Team selection, Pozaric becomes the second athlete at an institution East of the California border to earn All-America First Team recognition by joining 2019 selection Rade Joksimovic of Bucknell University.
A trio of MAWPC and NWPC athletes earn spots on the Third Team as Vladan Mitrovic (Jr., Novi Sad, Serbia/Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj) of Princeton, Harvard’s James Rozolis-Hill (So., Huntington Beach, Calif./Huntington Beach) and MAWPC Champion Fordham’s George Papanikolaou (Jr., Athens, Greece/Athens College) comprise nearly half of the eight-man squad. The awards add to the trio’s legacy as Mitrovic (2022 Honorable Mention), Papanikolaou (2021 Honorable Mention, 2022 Honorable Mention) and Rozolis-Hill (2022 Third Team) all hold prior All-America accolades.
The bulk of the leagues’ All-America nods come on the Honorable Mention list with 11 accolades split between the NWPC (seven) and MAWPC (four).
Princeton goalkeeper Krisof Kovacs (Fr., Hodmezovasarhely, Hungary/Bethlen Gabor Reformed) and Navy netminder Caden Capobianco (Sr., Laguna Beach, Calif./Laguna Beach) earn their inaugural All-America accolades, while Midshipmen field player Kiefer Black (Fr., San Diego, Calif./La Jolla) joins Capobianco.
Jaxson Tierney (Fr., Sierra Madre, Calif./Harvard-Westlake), Gabe Chang (Jr., Seal Beach, Calif./Los Alamitos) and 2022 Honorable Mention pick Ilias Stothart (So., Los Angeles, Calif./Harvard-Westlake) of Brown, Gabe Putnam (Sr., Clovis, Calif./Buchanan) of Harvard along with Drew Miller (Sr., Richmond, Texas/Foster) and 2022 Honorable Mention selection Luksa Vlasic (Jr., Fort Lauderdale, Fla./St. Thomas Aquinas) of Iona University join Luca Silvestri (Jr., Napoli, Italy/Istituto Comprensvo Sacro Cuore (Westcliff University)) of Fordham and 2022 Honorable Mention recipient Aleksa Stefanovic (So., Belgrade, Serbia/Sportska Gimnazija) of Bucknell to complete the NWPC/MAWPC honorees.
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