Daily Journal Boys’ Water Polo Player of the Year: Sacred Heart Prep’s Oliver Marcin

“I started playing water polo in fifth grade, but that was recreational, at best. I wasn’t the strongest swimmer and I wasn’t much of a water guy,” said Marcin, a four-year senior varsity water polo player at Sacred Heart Prep.

“Over COVID, there wasn’t much to do, so I went to the Menlo Circus Club (located behind the Atherton campus). I was swimming over there all the time and there were a couple of goals, so I would shoot around there.

“I just got a ton better out of COVID.”

Five years later, Marcin is a four-time Central Coast Section champion, a four-time Nor Cal champ, two-time CCS Player of the Year and now the Daily Journal Boys’ Water Polo Player of the Year.

“Summer between seventh and eighth grade, that was the biggest breakout,” Marcin said. “I was a Junior Olympic All-American. That winter, I started training with the (SHP) varsity team.”

Now a 6-5, 220-pound 2-meter player and a Princeton University commit, Marcin developed into not only one of the most dominant players in Northern California, but also showed off tremendous versatility — this season, especially.

He has come a long way in a short amount of time.

“He was a really good athlete at our lower school, but when he came to us (at the high school level), he was as raw as they come,” SHP head coach Brian Kreutzkamp said. “He was just a big, strong athlete. He had played some club at Stanford, but he was not a 12-month club player. He was just playing a couple months at a time.”

Marcin saw heavy minutes as a freshman, but was not a starter. As he entered his sophomore season, Kreutzkamp had an epiphany.

“Come sophomore year, I started to realize how athletic he was and his sports IQ was so high, his ceiling became much higher,” Kreutzkamp said.

Which led to Marcin’s senior year that saw him, essentially, play three positions. In addition to his offensive hole set duties, a role that is akin to an old-school basketball center posting up on the block, he added perimeter play and 2-meter defense to his resume this season.

“We asked him to do a lot of different things this year,” Kreutzkamp said. “In the summer, teams would double and triple team him and he wouldn’t get many touches. So we played him on the perimeter quite a bit and it allowed us to do some (different) things on offense.”

Those changes enabled Marcin not only to be more effective, it allowed teammate Clay Carrington to earn co-CCS Player of the Year honors along with Marcin. Carrington led the Gators in goals this season, finishing with 104. But Marcin was right behind with 94.

But it was the intangibles that made Marcin so formidable. His 49 ejections drawn were second on to team to Eddie Eiref’s 51.

The 2-meter defensive assignment was the biggest question mark, however.

It’s rare that a 2-meter player would play that spot on both offense and defense because the workload is too much for most players, and it puts players at risk of ejections. Three major ejections in one game and that player is done for the rest of the match.

But Marcin, ever the team player, simply said: “Whatever you need, coach.”

“[Kreutzkamp’s] whole goal was not to have me in one place,” Marcin said. “If I’m being honest, offense is my preferred skill. I’m a center. Center loves to score. That’s not to say defense isn’t important. That was something of a weakness — my defense wasn’t as good as much offense. It’s something I’ve tried to develop.”

Part of it is the mindset and expectations at Sacred Heart Prep, where winning and being your best are the standard. And Marcin exemplifies that.

“CCS especially, and Nor Cal as well, that’s the end goal,” Marcin said. “That’s the expectation at Sacred Heart. It’s something we always say in the huddle, ‘Nobody work as hard as we do.’ I firmly believe that. I pride myself on being someone who wants to win. I love to win.”

Despite his growth in the pool, Marcin still has not hung up his high-tops as he is in his fourth year of varsity basketball, as well, a sport he’s been playing since he was five or six years old. And if he put in the time on the court he does in the pool, he might very well have earned a Division I basketball scholarship.

But it’s work in both sports that might be most impressive. As much time as he spends on the basketball court during the winter, it is not at the expense of his water polo training.

“My sophomore year, it was a big decision for me,” Marcin said. “That was the year with all the ODP (Olympic Development Program) stuff.”

He sat down with Kreutzkamp and had a heart-to-heart talk.

“We had a discussion before basketball started (my sophomore year). What do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? Is this the best decision for you? If so, you have to manage it,” Marcin said. “I’m grateful I didn’t drop it (basketball). … I love my basketball team.

“But I’m always in the pool. Year round in the pool, which is kind of what it takes. But I love it.”

It wasn’t always love for polo, however. When Marcin was in sixth grade, he was playing up a couple age brackets, playing U14 polo in Junior Olympics competition. He wanted to quit. His mom wouldn’t let him.

Turns out, mom was right.

“I told her, ‘I can’t compete with these guys,’” Marcin said. “She said, ‘You have to keep playing.’ Credit to her for keeping me going. I’ve fallen in love with the sport, since.

“I’m so grateful for all it’s brought me.”