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 joined Clay Carrington (Fr., Menlo Park, Calif./Sacred Heart Preparatory) of Harvard University as the trio of Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC)/Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) athletes helped the United States Men’s Junior National Team claim the Gold Medal at the 2026 PanAm Aquatics U19 Water Polo Championships in Bauru, Brazil, on September 28-to-October 4.
The trio were joined by three coaches with connections to the MAWPC/NWPC/Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) as Fordham Associate Head Coach Ilija Duretic (pictured) served as head coach, while assistant coach Joseph Molina of No. 19-ranked Brown University and former University of Pittsburgh Women’s Collegiate Club head coach Jim Staresinic aided Duretic as assistant coaches with Biola University lead assistant coach Trevor Campbell.
Team USA lost only one match during the tournament as the squad suffered a 20-19 loss in penalty shots versus host Brail during group play. However, the Americans made up for that loss by knocking off the host team in the championship game, 19-13.
The Americans rolled through group play with games against Peru (26-4 W), Canada (28-9 W), Brazil (20-19 L penalty shots), Argentina (18-7 W) and Mexico (35-7 W) to reach the medal round. Team USA did not disappoint in the medal contests by outscoring their foes 42-19 with a semifinal defeat of Canada (23-6 W) prior to besting Brazil (19-13) for the Gold Medal under Duretic’s tutelage.
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.
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.
