Men's Water Polo: Zalewski takes charge

No matter the venue, Mark Zalewski leaves an impact. Since he arrived on campus in fall 2006, the senior left attack for the men’s water polo team has made a name for himself through hard shots, big laughs and legendary snores.

“When he shoots the ball, it’s not so much a matter of reacting,” senior goalie Scottie Hvidt said. “You almost just have to guess because the ball is going so hard.” Hvidt is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

In high school, Zalewski was already known for his aggressive throws: Once he even injured an opponent mid-game with a particularly hard shot.

“I definitely hit someone’s face before on accident,” Zalewski said. “If you throw the ball hard enough and it hits the goalie in the nose, then there is a good chance his nose is going to break.”

Though Zalewski arrived at Princeton with one of the biggest shots on the team, it took him a while to figure out how to best employ this weapon.

Zalewski was a competitive swimmer growing up in St. Louis, Mo, which gave him an obvious competitive advantage in water polo. Zalewski got a late start in water polo, coming to the sport as a seventh grader after going to one of his older brother’s practices.

“As a little kid, I was a little roughhouser. I used to like to beat up on people, and you can’t really do that in swimming,” Zalewski said. “My brother started playing water polo when he was in high school. I went to a couple games when I was in seventh grade and thought it was real fun. We had a local club team, so I tried out for that, and I ended up liking it way more than swimming, and I slowly transferred over to that.”

This season, Zalewski has finally put all his considerable talents together in the pool. The towering left-hander currently leads Princeton with 45 goals — a number far in excess of that of any other player on the team.

Zalewski also leads the team in shots and shooting percentage. During the last weekend of regular- season play, Zalewski tallied five goals against both George Washington and Johns Hopkins.

“I would say he’s always had a very hard shot, but before this season, he didn’t really have the game awareness to go along with that shot and really make it an asset to our team,” senior attack Doug Wigley said.

“This year he’s finally put it together where he has the shot, he has the defense, [and] he makes the passes. He’s a much more complete player than I’ve seen before by leaps and bounds,” Wigley added.

Highlighting his importance to the team, Zalewski has scored in all but one of the Tigers’ wins this season.

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In the team’s biggest win of the season thus far — a 7-3 triumph over archrival Navy on Senior Night — Zalewski led the team with three goals.

Just as important as Zalewski’s regular contribution to the box score is the positive attitude that he brings to the team.

“A couple summers ago, I went hiking with Mark in Yosemite. It was just the two of us, and, being aquatic athletes, it was probably the hardest thing that either of us had ever done,” Wigley said.

“Mark was behind me the entire way because I was the self-designated trail leader. He was non-stop good energy, cracking jokes, whether it was our first step or our 5,000th step. He has a great attitude, too. He’s never too negative about anything. As much as he hates getting out of bed for morning practice, he always does it with a smile on his face,” he added.

Despite his success in the water, Zalewski’s most distinguishing trait comes from outside the pool, according to his teammates. Hvidt — Zalewski’s roommate for three years — referred to his classmate as the “slumbering bear” for his prolific snoring habits.

“He’s one of the worst habitual snorers I have ever met, who just refuses to admit he has an issue with it whatsoever,” Wigley said. “You’ll be like, ‘Dude, Mark, I was up listening to you snore all last night.” And he’ll [respond], ‘What are you talking about?’”

Snoring aside, if Princeton is to win the Eastern Championships and reach the NCAA Final Four for the first time since 2004, it will be largely thanks to Zalewski’s cannon left arm.

No matter how his senior season winds up, Zalewski will look back on water polo as the highlight of his time at Princeton.

“It’s definitely been the defining thing for me at this school. I think when I look back, I’ll say that I took a lot of interesting classes and learned a lot about history, because I’m a history major,” Zalewski said. “But I think the thing that I’ll really look back to is my time on the water polo team and the guys that I’ve gotten to know through that. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

With the biggest games of the year still approaching in the coming weeks, Zalewski has time to create a few more memories in the pool.