Junior Nick Bisconti is this week’s Athlete of the Week for his stellar contributions to the boys’ water polo team.  The Knights have battled through a tough schedule in the non-conference portion of their season, hosting the Roche tournament two weeks ago against strong competition and then going on to play in St. Francis’s tournament that brings together the best water polo teams from the NCS and CCS.  Menlo lost to a tough San Ramon Valley team in the last game of the tournament, but Bisconti praised the team’s effort.  “We played very strong as a team,” Bisconti said.  The Knights beat CCS rivals Saint Ignatius and Los Altos in the St. Francis tournament, continuing the team’s recent success.  Bisconti scored an incredible 27 goals in the eight games between the two tournaments.

“One of my greatest strengths is in my size,” Bisconti said, “I’m a lot bigger than most of the guys we go up against […] so I use [my size] to control the other team and [over] power them.”  Bisconti is on the United States Youth National team and trained with them in Los Angeles for two weeks over the summer.  He spent the rest of the offseason playing for Stanford Water Polo Club, which finished second in the Junior Olympics.

It’s not hard to see what makes Bisconti such a powerful force in the pool given all his incredible accomplishments.  However, Bisconti cites the reinforcements from underclassmen as one of the reasons for the team’s success so far this year.  “After losing 7 seniors last year, it’s really cool to see how some of the younger guys have stepped up and are now contributing [to the team],” Bisconti said.  The team also played strong over the past weekend without a key senior starter in the lineup.  With regards to the rest of the season, Bisconti hopes the team can defeat “a strong SHP team” for the CCS title.  “My goal is to see the hard work that I know this team is putting in to be rewarded,” Bisconti said.  If Bisconti keeps up his torrid pace in the water, the team is destined for success.