BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Kane Fogg (Thousand Oaks, Calif./Oaks Christian School) and Soren Jessen (So., San Rafael, Calif./Terra Linda) of No. 5-ranked Fordham University join Clay Carrington (Fr., Menlo Park, Calif./Sacred Heart Preparatory) of Harvard University as a trio of Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC)/Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) athletes were named to the United States Men’s Junior National Team for the 2026 PanAm Aquatics U19 Water Polo Championships in Bauru, Brazil.
The competition will take place from September 28-to-October 4 and will feature some of the best pipeline athletes in the country. Live streaming of all matches will be available at PanAmAquaticsPlay.com and live statistics for every game can be found at 6-8 Sports. More information can be found from PanAm Aquatics.
A member of the 2025 MAWPC Champion Fordham squad, Jessen appeared in all 30 games as a freshman. He scored 13 goals to go with six assists and four steals during his freshman year with the Rams. A three-year captain of the water polo team at Terra Linda HIgh School, he earned Marin County Athletic League (MCAL) First Team All-League honors three times from 2022-24 and Honorable Mention All-League in 2021. A two-time team Most Valuable Player (2023, 2024), he helped Terra Linda to the North Coast Section (NCS) Division 2 Championship in 2022.
Fogg, who will join Fordham in 2027 following a gap period in 2026, played four seasons of water polo at Oaks Christian School where he was a First Team California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Open Division selection and Second Team California/Hawaii All-America as a senior after earning Third Team All-CIF honors as a junior. He was selected as co-Most Valuable Player (MVP_ of the Marmonte League in 2025, as well as First Team All-Ventura County.
Carrington joined Harvard after serving as captain and earning first-team All-America honors in 2025 at Sacred Heart. A member of conference championship teams all four years of high school to continue the institution’s streak of 15 consecutive Central Coast Section Championships, he earned First Team All-Conference as a junior in 2024 and Second Team All-America.
The trio will be led by three coaches with connections to the MAWPC/NWPC/Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) as Fordham Associate Head Coach Ilija Duretic will serve as head coach, while assistant coach Joseph Molina of No. 18-ranked Brown University and former University of Pittsburgh Women’s Collegiate Club head coach Jim Staresinic will serve as assistant coaches with Biola University lead assistant coach Trevor Campbell.
Promoted to Associate Head Coach in 2026 after serving as an assistant coach for three seasons at Fordham, Duretic has helped a meteoric rise of the Rams’ program as the team became the first East Coast program to rank No. 1 in the National Top 20 Poll in 2024 and has captured five (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025) MAWPC Championships and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship berths during his tenure in the Bronx.
Since coming to Rose Hill in 2023, Duretic has been a part of three MAWPC Championships and three berths to the National Collegiate Championship. A total of 13 players have earned All-League honors during that span with three earning League Most Valuable Player laurels and 12 receiving Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America honors.
Prior to Fordham, Duretic served as the head coach of both the men’s and women’s water polo programs at St. Francis Brooklyn for two seasons. Duretic led the men’s team to back-to-back final appearances at the NWPC Championship. The squad also posted 21 wins in 2022, the most since the 2013 season, with Duretic being named as the 2022 NWPC Coach of the Tournament at the NWPC Championship.
Aside from his time at St. Francis Brooklyn, Duretic served as the boys’ and girls’ water polo head coach at Saint Andrew’s High School in Florida from 2019 to 2020. Before he took over both programs at Saint Andrew’s, he was the water polo Head Coach for the Florida Atlantic University Water Polo Club from 2018 to 2019, guiding the team to a Third Place finish at the Florida Division Championship.
A four-year standout student-athlete at St. Francis Brooklyn from 2013 to 2017, Duretic helped lead the Terriers to the NCAA Championship semifinals in 2013. During that freshman season, he was named CWPA Rookie of the Week twice, and scored three goals in the Terriers’ NCAA play-in game victory against UC San Diego. He was a member of the Northeast Conference (NEC) Academic Honor Roll and received ACWPC All-Academic Superior Team honors throughout his career. Duretic also achieved great success on the National level as a player. He was a four-time Junior National Champion of Serbia, as he was a member of the Serbian Junior National Team.
Molina was named an assistant coach for the Brown men’s water polo program in January 2026 following a tenure as head coach for the Boys Varsity Water Polo program at Orange Lutheran High School in Orange County, Calif. A former collegiate athlete at the University of California where he was a member of the Golden Bears’ 2021 and 2022 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship teams, Molina Molina served as the Head Coach for the Boys Cadet Futures 2025 USA Water Polo National Team during the Summer of 2025. In addition, he has served as a coach for multiple water polo clubs throughout California and played two years professionally with Drummoyne Water Polo Club in Sydney, Australia.
No stranger to international competition and a prominent presence in Western Pennsylvania water polo, Staresinic served as teams manager when Washington & Jefferson College coach Nikola Malezanov led the U.S. Men’s Cadet National Team past Europe’s best programs to capture gold at the 2017 Darko Cukic Memorial Tournament in Belgrade, Serbia.
Men’s Junior National Team
Clay Carrington (Menlo Park, Calif/Harvard University/Atherton Aquatics Foundation)
Ellis Culleton (Moraga, Calif./Campolindo HS/CC United)
Diego Dantas (Solana Beach, Calif./Cathedral Catholic HS/San Diego Dons WPC)
Kane Fogg (Thousand Oaks, Calif./Fordham University/Channel Islands United)
Harper Gardner (Sacramento, Calif./University of California-Los Angeles/American River WPC)
Reed Hanna (Mill Valley, Calif./University of Southern California/TPCM Sharks)
Luke Harris (Newport Beach, Calif./University of Southern California/Newport Beach WPC)
Soren Jessen (San Rafael, Calif./Fordham University/SHAQ)
Gian Michael Sarimsakci (San Francisco, Calif./University of California/San Francisco WPC)
Peter Saunders (Greenwich, Conn./Brunswick School/Greenwich Aquatics)
Jackson Shaw (Greenwich, Conn./Brunswick School/Greenwich Aquatics)
Nate Simoncelli (Newport Beach, Calif./University of Southern California/CDM Back Bay)
Trent Smith (Orinda, Calif./Miramonte HS/Lamorinda)
Jett Taylor (San Diego, Calif./Cathedral Catholic HS/San Diego Dons WPC)
Men’s Junior National Team Staff
Head Coach: Ilija Duretic
Asst Coach: Joseph Molina
Asst. Coach: James Staresinic
Asst. Coach: Trevor Campbell
ATC: Kevin Anderson
Team Physician: Alexander Waldher
Referee: Peter Sophabmixay
Men’s Junior National Team Schedule
September 28: USA vs Peru – 12:30 p.m. Pacific/3:30 p.m. Eastern
September 29: USA vs Canada – 1:30 p.m. Pacific/4:30 p.m. Eastern
September 30: USA vs Peru – 10:30 a.m. Pacific/1:30 p.m. Eastern
October 1: USA vs Canada – 10:30 a.m. Pacific/1:30 p.m. Eastern
October 2: USA at Brazil – 4:30 p.m. Pacific/7:30 p.m. Eastern
October 3: TBD
October 4: TBD
