Bonanni has visions of gold in Rio

Bret Bonanni stood on the flight deck of the USS Midway in San Diego early last month, waiting to be introduced as part of a team that would go into training before embarking on an important mission.

Less than four weeks later, he and his teammates had lift-off from Houston toward Rio de Janeiro.

The team’s ultimate goal? To win gold.

The Huntington Beach athlete is one of 13 players on the U.S. Olympic men’s water polo team that will contend for gold at the Summer Olympic Games. The players selected to the squad made their official debut on the flight deck July 7 when Coach Dejan Udovicic made the announcement during a press conference.

Bonanni, 22, is one of several Huntington Beach athletes competing in various sports in the Rio Games. The opening ceremony for the 2016 Games is Friday. The Games come to a close Aug. 21.

The USA men qualified for the Rio Games by defeating Canada (9-8) in the semifinal round of the 2015 Pan American Games, where they won the tournament title.

Team USA arrived in Rio earlier in the week.

“This has been a dream of mine, for sure,” Bonanni said pool side at Sergerstrom High, where the men’s water polo team held pre-Olympics practice sessions. “I’ve always watched Team USA walk in the opening ceremony and now, I have the chance to do that and be part of the Games. That’s pretty incredible. Hopefully, we’ll get to walk it (opening ceremony) — our first game is a big game and its early the next day (Saturday).”

Team USA will compete in Group B to start the men’s water polo tournament. It begins tourney play Saturday (6:20 a.m. PT) against Croatia, which won gold at the 2012 Olympic Games.

In other group play games, the U.S. faces Spain on Monday, France on Wednesday, Montenegro on Aug. 12 and Italy on Aug. 14. The men’s quarterfinals start Aug. 16 and medal round games are Aug. 20.

Bonanni, a 6-foot-3, 205-pound attacker, is one of nine newcomers to the U.S. roster. Team USA is anchored by four returning Olympians: attacker, team captain and Rio de Janeiro native Tony Azevedo (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012), defender Jesse Smith (2004, 2008, 2012), goalie Merrill Moses (2008, 2012) and center John Mann (2012). Azevedo will be the first U.S. player to compete in five Olympic Games.

The week before departing for Rio, Team USA was in Houston for pre-Olympics events and trained with the Montenegro Olympic team. The teams played Saturday at the University of Houston and in a final tune-up for the Olympic Games, the U.S. won, 10-9.

Bonanni scored twice and was one of three U.S. players with multiple goals. Azevedo and Luca Cupido of Newport Beach led the scoring with three goals each.

Bonanni attended St. Bonaventure Catholic School in Huntington Beach, then Mater Dei High before heading to Stanford University, where he said he will finish the final semester of his senior year in the fall.

He’s been training full-time with the U.S. national team since January, he said.

“I never swam on a team until the summer before my eighth-grade year,” said Bonanni, who was part of Huntington Beach Water Polo Club. “I liked water polo right away. I liked the mechanics of the game, the physicality of it. All my friends were playing too.”

Bonanni said he first got started in USA Water Polo national team affiliation the summer before his junior year at Mater Dei (Class of 2012).

At Mater Dei, he was All-CIF Southern Section all four years, Division 1 Player of the Year his junior and senior years, and won a CIF Southern Section championship every year. He was named National Interscholastic Swim Coaches Assn./Speedo Boys All-America First Team in 2010 and 2011.

He also had an illustrious water polo career at Stanford where, in his final season playing for the Cardinal, he set the all-time scoring record for the program and also for the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The record came on a six-goal performance in a road match Oct. 31 at Long Beach St. He broke the all-time scoring record previously held by Olympic teammate Azevedo.

Team USA is ranked sixth in the world going into Rio. In May, the team won the FINA Men’s Intercontinental Tournament in Japan. In June, it won silver after a second-place finish to Serbia at the FINA World League Super Final in China. The medal was the team’s first in a major FINA competition since winning silver at the 2008 Olympic Games.

The U.S. finished eighth at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

After the 2016 team was formally introduced last month, Bonanni said the group stayed in San Diego to train for several hours daily for more than a week. From there, the team trained at Segerstrom High.

“We’re definitely a young team overall, the youngest when you pool our average ages,” he said. “We’re excited to prove ourselves and show the world what we can do. We’re definitely a super-close team.

“I think Serbia, which is ranked No. 1 in the world, is an obvious favorite for the gold. Croatia is, as well, and they won gold four years ago. I feel that we have a great shot, and I know we can string together some victories.”

There have been plenty of well-publicized concerns surrounding the Olympic Games in Rio, but Bonanni remains focused at the task at hand.

“It’s a little bit concerning, but I’m not worrying about it,” Bonanni said the week before he left for Rio. “I’m going. I’ve worked so hard and so long for this moment.”

When the Rio Games are over and he returns home, Bonanni said he’ll do something he loves but hasn’t been able to do since he began training for the Rio Games: get back to the ocean to surf.

“I’m going surfing after Rio, definitely” he said. “I’m looking forward to that.”