What do you get when you put a 6-foot-7 athlete with a constant smile in the pool? You get 21 postseason points and a guy named Andrej Grgurevic.
The junior utility from Sydney, Australia had a breakout season with 39 goals and 26 assists, helping the USC water polo team win its third straight and 14th all-time MPSF title. As all players do, Grgurevic started from more humble beginnings than winning the MPSF championship.
“I was a swimmer to start,” Grgurevic said. “A few of my friends told me to start water polo. First practice [I] fell in love with it, and didn’t really like swimming anyways.”
The Sydney native talked about his decision to come to USC and play water polo in the States as compared to back in Australia.
“[USC water polo] has a big Australian heritage… I was talking to them as I was finishing high school, and all of them [said] you have to do it,” Grgurevic said. “I felt like it was a super easy decision to make.”
Although Grgurevic had a massive junior season, he made a significant impact on the team in his first two seasons as a Trojan, scoring 21 goals in each of the campaigns.
“Coming in, I was nervous because there was a lot of good talent,” Grgurevic said. “The players, [head coach Marko Pintaric], everyone was really helpful…they put me in a position where it’s hard to fail. If you put in the work, put in the effort, you are going to succeed.”
In the first round of the MPSF tournament, USC was matched up against the Austin College Kangaroos where the Trojans would take the victory 31-2. No stranger to kangaroos himself, Grgurevic had a great game with a hat trick and an assist in the lopsided matchup.
It was not the matchup against the Texas team that worried USC necessarily, but the following game against the Stanford Cardinal. Grgurevic had a goal and an assist in the game while also garnering two steals and an exclusion call for his squad. The very physical contest led to an overtime finish that the Trojans would end up winning 18-16.
There was a catch in this game: Pintaric was thrown out. Without a coach, most teams would struggle, but this USC team seemed to feel differently.
“I felt getting him tossed from the game was like the spark to give us the extra push,” Grgurevic said. “We felt the refs were against us, the other team is coming back, everything is against us… this is where we show our true character. From that point, we really started flying.”
They certainly did fly, as the Trojans took down the Trees behind a spectacular shooting performance from the team and great goalkeeping from redshirt sophomore Bernardo Herzer. Their next opponent was a familiar foe they had seen three times prior in the season — and had lost to in all three attempts.
“Coming into the UCLA game, we were so fired up to beat them,” Grgurevic said. “Even without our coach, we [thought] we could do this, we’ve trained all season together. There’s nothing that will stop us from doing this.”
One of the toughest wrinkles in the championship game was that UCLA had a home-pool advantage at Spieker Aquatics Center. The stands were packed and ready to watch the rivals go to war for the hardware, mirroring the two teams’ matches earlier in the year. The Trojans took care of business once again to win the MPSF Championship by a score of 15-13, and Grgurevic racked up some more stats as well — scoring another goal and adding an assist while also grabbing two steals.
“There’s no better feeling than beating UCLA at UCLA,” Grgurevic said. “This whole season, we felt like we weren’t playing our best water polo… and I feel this last tournament we’re slowly starting to see it click… but beating them in their own pool, nothing better.”
Winning MPSF clinched the Trojans a 20th straight NCAA Tournament appearance and also seeded them on what could be described as the easier side of the bracket. Though not necessarily straightforward by any means, the Trojans battled first against California Baptist and then played against Fordham in another overtime thriller.
Cal Baptist and USC faced off earlier in the season, when the Trojans took home the 21-12 victory. In the deceptively tough rematch, it seemed nothing was going the Trojans’ way, with the Lancers heading toward a 3-0 lead in the first period. USC came back and ended up winning 17-13, but the final score didn’t tell the story of how close the match really was.
The next matchup against Fordham also seemed to be a game that slipped out of USC’s fingers at the beginning. It wasn’t until Grgurevic responded to the Rams’ two goals that the Trojans started to look alive. Grgurevic traded two more goals with Fordham and brought the score to 4-3 — with the Australian scoring each of the Trojans’ points up to that point.
With four minutes to play in the final period, Grgurevic netted his fourth goal of the day to tie the game back up 13-13. With sophomore driver Robert López Duart scoring another goal and Fordham responding, the Trojans went to overtime in the postseason yet again.
It was all cardinal and gold in the extra periods, with Grgurevic netting yet another goal — his fifth of the evening — which would end up being the game-winning goal. Along with the five goals, Grgurevic also had an assist, a steal and a forced exclusion for his team.
The Trojans’ final game of the season came against a familiar opponent seeking revenge — the Bruins. UCLA came out hot with two goals before USC responded with three of their own — the third of which came from the hand of Grgurevic. After goals from each side, the utility found another goal and added two assists in the match as well, but it was not enough as the Bruins outmatched the Trojans in a low-scoring 11-8 battle.
Grgurevic seemed very optimistic about the future of the program with all of the players who will be returning next season for USC.
“This group, [they’re] some of my closest friends,” Grgurevic said. “Being able to run it back one more time in my senior year with all of them… plus we have a very good recruiting class as well… next year is going to be very exciting. I am looking forward to it.”
Coming off a very hot season, Grgurevic will be in the driver’s seat along with Herzer and López Duart to hit the restart button on another season next fall as the Trojans look to win a fourth consecutive MPSF title and try to win their first NCAA title since 2018.