Acalanes’ Nick Hoversten, one of the most heavily-recruited boys water polo players in the class of 2010, decided today to continue his water polo career at Stanford. Hoversten, the Bay Area News Group’s Player of the Year, picked the Cardinal over Cal, UCLA and USC.

“One of the hardest parts was that I know so many guys at all four schools from various teams I’ve played on over time,” said Hoversten. “When it finally came down to Cal and Stanford it was especially hard because I played with pretty much entire Cal team for premier league and got to know all coaches. I knew all of them really well which made it really hard to branch out to something I didn’t know quite as well.
“It’s kind of a full-package deal. Stanford really had good combination of everything.”

In his senior season, Hoversten led the Dons to the Diablo Foothill Athletic League title and the North Coast Section title game where they fell to four-time defending champion Miramonte 6-5. Hoversten has led Acalanes in scoring the past three seasons and had 73 goals during the fall, despite focusing primarily on 2-meter defense. He was recently named to the California-Hawaii All-American first team and was also the DFAL MVP and NCS Co-MVP.

Miramonte goalkeeper Jon Sibley signed with Cal to highlight other local boys water polo signings.