Sharks’ Hayden Goldberg enters water polo season with new coaching insight

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Malibu High Sharks boys water polo head coach Hayden Goldberg (bottom right0 helped coach a South Coast water polo team to a gold medal at the U.S. Water Polo Junior Olympics. Photo from Goldberg.

Preparing for seventh year, he said he learned a lot as assistant of Thousand Oaks club team this summer

Malibu High Sharks boys water polo head coach Hayden Goldberg began the Sharks’ preparation for the season on Monday with a change in his coaching game. 

Goldberg, in his seventh season as the team’s head coach, learned a lot about coaching during the offseason thanks to the time he spent coaching with the South Coast Aquatics water polo club in Thousand Oaks, being in high-level water polo environments, and watching water polo competitions in the just-concluded Summer Olympics.

“I immersed myself with some really good coaches,” Goldberg recalled. “I learned a lot of basic and hard techniques and a lot mental game/physical game/emotional game. I soaked up a lot.” 

Goldberg, 39, was an assistant coach of South Coast’s 16u Red water polo team, coached by his friend Xavier Volgenau, that won the gold medal of the silver division in Session 1 of the U.S. Water Polo Junior Olympics at Stanford University’s Avery Aquatics Center in late July. 

“I watched from day one what he did with the boys,” Goldberg said. “I’ve always wanted to win gold; I’ve always wanted to jump in the pool to celebrate. That happened with this team. That has me excited about this season also.”

Goldberg aims to take the gold-medal winning water polo knowledge he gleamed over the summer and apply it to the water polo culture at Malibu High, which is known to accumulate its fair share of W’s and league championships also.

“There is nothing wrong with enhancing, educating, and learning,” the Sharks coach said. “There were a lot of tough situations, a lot of emotional situations, and the South Coast kids came out on top. That had to do with the practicing they did prior. Putting them in hard situations, hard game scenarios.”

Goldberg was a former Malibu High player and assistant coach before he was bestowed the head coaching reigns by longtime Malibu coach Mike Mulligan — now the Sharks assistant coach — in 2018. Goldberg has had a successful tenure on the pool deck. 

The Sharks captured the Tri-Valley League title for the third straight year last October and advanced to the second round of the CIF playoffs. Goldberg has also been the Malibu girls water polo team’s head coach since 2012. The girlsgroup were champions of the Tri-Valley League last spring and advanced to the quarterfinals of the CIF postseason. League titles and playoff berths have been a normal occurrence for the squads under Goldberg’s stewardship.

On Monday, Malibu began its annual “hell week” to prepare for its 2024 water polo campaign. The five days of 8-a.m.-to-1-p.m. practices include training in the pool and gym and film study. 

Goldberg held Malibu practices during a five-week period this summer that were attended by a handful of players including Lucas Galan, Lyan Wild-Mullarkey, Taj Petretti, Noah Bannon, Hudson Breese, Costes Jensen, Nikau Webb, and Ryder Lippman. He said the Sharks were dominant in the water. 

“I am so excited to coach them now,” Goldberg said. “They completely bite into what I was coaching. They had a full commitment.”

Malibu finished 2023 with a 21-12 record, which included going 9-0 in the Tri-Valley League. Goldberg forecasts the squad to have a comparable season this year.

“I expect the boys that are coming back from last year’s team to have the exact same mentality,” he said. “I think we can win league again. We have the personnel. We can make a run in CIF.” 

The Sharks scrimmage Santa Monica on Aug 19 at Santa Monica High School and scrimmage Santa Barbara High in their home pool that next day. Malibu plays in the two-day Conejo Classic Varsity Tournament in Thousand Oaks beginning Aug. 23. The team then has a string of home games versus Camarillo on Aug. 27 and Agoura two days later. The Sharks host Beverly Hills on Sept. 4 and the three-day Malibu Varsity Tournament starts Sept. 5. Malibu hosts Brentwood on Sept. 10.

Goldberg wants to coach Malibu’s players on the fundamentals of water polo.

“I learned to look at more fundamentals this summer,” he said. “I want the boys to understand the basics of what they should be doing in the pool and take the time to work on the fundamentals because that could come into play during a game. Preparation is going to be huge.”