Team USA men’s water polo handles pressure against Montenegro
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IRVINE — Improvement can come in the form of a close victory or a tough loss.
The United States men’s water polo senior national team experienced both during the first two matches of a three-match exhibition series against Montenegro.
A 12-11 win in the opener Friday night at Orange Coast College was followed by an 18-17 loss on Sunday night at Woollett Aquatics Center in Irvine.
Montenegro’s Miroslav Perkovic scored the game-winning power play goal with one second remaining Sunday night, silencing the partisan home crowd, many of whom were chanting “USA” as the action intensified in the second half.
Team captain Marko Vavic led the Americans with four goals, with Dominic Brown and Ryan Ohl adding three goals each.
Team USA and Montenegro played the rubber match of the series on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at UC San Diego.
Halfway through the quadrennial cycle heading up to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, Team USA coach Dejan Udovičić said that tough matches like that were what his team needs to improve.
“I’m really proud that our team, my team, is fighting from the first moment until the ending moment,” said Udovičić, preparing to coach Team USA in its fourth Olympics since he was hired in 2013. “The result is not always going to be on our side, but we understand that for us to develop and improve for 2028, it’s most important for us to have those kind of pressure games that will be decided in the last moment or the last possession, at the buzzer. That’s what happened tonight.”
Team USA has four local players in the exhibition series — Newport Harbor High graduates Ben Liechty, Peter Castillo and Connor Ohl and Huntington Beach High graduate Chase Dodd. Liechty, Castillo and Dodd were part of the NCAA championship men’s water polo team at UCLA last fall.
Of the quartet, only Dodd is a returning Olympian. His younger brother Ryder Dodd, another returning Olympian who also plays for the Bruins, is not playing in the Montenegro series due to an unspecified injury.
Liechty is an emerging left-hander for the squad. He led Team USA with four goals in Friday night’s win and had two goals and two assists on Sunday night.
“I hope that after my comment, that he will not be super satisfied with himself,” Udovičić said. “He needs to improve like everyone, but he’s the first lefty in the United States in the last 50 years who is playing defense. That’s something that’s really nice to see, and he’s improving on offense. This is one of the players that we are counting [on], not just for 2028. We are counting [on] him for the future. Great kid, great professional player giving all out during practice, and this is how that’s returning back to him.”
Leichty, a two-time Daily Pilot Boys’ Water Polo Dream Team Player of the Year during his high school career, credited his upbringing in the Newport Harbor program for his prowess.
“Just growing up in Newport and having the coaches I’ve had through the Newport Harbor pipeline has helped me build my defense and become a good defensive player, which has helped me in the long run at the collegiate level and the international level,” he said following Sunday’s game.
Team USA took a 5-2 lead late in the first quarter, but Montenegro scored five straight goals to take the advantage. The match was knotted at 7-7 at halftime after Liechty netted a near-side strike on the power play.
Montenegro, led by five goals from Aleksa Upropina, took a 15-12 lead after three quarters.
“I thought we could have done a better job controlling the ball and limiting the turnovers,” Liechty said. “I thought every time we had a turnover, they were able to get in transition, which led to penalties that hurt us in the third quarter for sure.”
But a goal by Chase Dodd in transition early in the fourth helped bring the Americans closer.
An exclusion drawn by Liechty led to a power-play goal by Vavic, tying the score at 17-17 with 1:22 remaining. Montenegro eventually got the ball back with 19 seconds remaining and called timeout.
A shot banged off the goalpost, but the visitors grabbed the rebound which led to the eventual game-winner.
Team USA converted eight of 18 power plays in the physical contest, as Liechty said they did a good job of drawing off-ball exclusions. Montenegro converted three of seven power plays and also converted two of its four penalty shot attempts.
Udovičić said the U.S. ultimately is trying to better its bronze medal finish at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which was the team’s best Olympic result since earning silver in Beijing in 2008.
“I’m pretty confident,” Udovičić said. “We’ve got a lot of good players to choose [from], to choose the right roster for what we need and how our game plan will look like.”
