IRVINE, Calif. — The Big West announced its 2025 men's water polo award winners and all-conference teams on Friday, crowning UC Santa Barbara's Charlie Johnson as The Big West Freshman of the Year and bestowing all-conference honors on a total of six Gauchos. Santa Barbara's standout trio of Danilo Dragovic, Levi Lentin and Brock Zamanian all earned places on the All-Big West First Team, while Johnson added an all-freshman nod and honorable mention to his Freshman of the Year award. Luke Redotey earned honorable mention alongside Johnson, while Camren Simoncelli joined Johnson on the all-freshman team.
 
Johnson burst onto the scene with 44 goals as a true freshman in 2025, good for third on the team and 10^th in The Big West, adding 26 assists to rank 10^th in the conference for total points as well, with 70 to his name. His 44 goals and 70 points both lead all Big West rookies. After he was held scoreless on the season's opening day, Johnson tallied his first collegiate goal against La Verne and went on to score in 17 consecutive games. He recorded a pivotal hat-trick to help the Gauchos upset then-No. 6 UC Davis on Nov. 1, the win which ultimately secured Santa Barbara's first-round bye in The Big West Championship. Johnson's achievement means that Gaucho student-athletes have won at least one Big West Freshman of the Year award in all four of UC Santa Barbara's fall sports. In soccer, Steinar Bjornsson claimed the honor with the men's squad, while in cross country it was Addie Oversmith taking home the award with the women's squad. Gabi Martinez earned the acclaim in women's volleyball, with Johnson now completing the sweep. Johnson is the first UC Santa Barbara Water Polo player to earn a conference Freshman of the Year or Newcomer of the Year award since Milos Golic was named Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Newcomer of the Year in 2007, the only other Gaucho to win such an award.
 
At the tip of the Gauchos' attacking spear this season was the dynamic duo of Dragovic and Zamanian. Like the Splash Bros. in their prime with the mid-2010s Golden State Warriors, Dragovic and Zamanian punished opponents with their outside shooting, combining for 122 of Santa Barbara's 421 goals on the season between the two of them — 63 for Dragovic and 59 for Zamanian — career highs for both and good for third and fourth in The Big West rankings. Also like elite basketball guards, the two handled plenty of playmaking duties, tallying 20-plus assists each — 21 for Zamanian and 20 for Dragovic — to finish atop the conference points tally, Dragovic's 83 just edging out Zamanian's 81. After being left off the All-Big West teams despite a 35-goal, 35-assist freshman campaign that saw him earn All-America honors regardless in 2024, Dragovic's 2025 campaign was a stamping of his authority on the conference and a sign of things to come; the Montenegrin has two years of eligibility remaining. Meanwhile, for the redshirt senior Zamanian, 2025 was a swan song, a one-upping of his already excellent 2024 campaign to wrap up his career in Blue and Gold. He finishes tied for eighth in the program's all-time goal leaderboard, with 162, thanks to back-to-back 50-goal seasons.
 
In goal, the talismanic Lentin got a swan song of his own, finally earning First Team All-Big West honors after back-to-back second team selections in 2023 and 2024. While the 2025 campaign was mainly about the Gauchos' high-powered offense, Lentin anchored the defense as a veteran leader and the team's captain. And he was quite the goalkeeper too. The La Jolla native once again tormented his hometown team, putting up a 10-save, three-steal performance against then-No. 6 UC San Diego that helped Santa Barbara upset the Tritons for a win to begin conference play and earned himself Big West Player of the Week honors. In the Gauchos' signature win of the season, the 16-13 upset of then-No. 6 UC Davis in Davis, Lentin had a career-high 17 saves. He finishes his tremendous career as one of eight goalies to ever record 500 saves in Santa Barbara's Blue and Gold and ranks sixth on the program's all-time saves chart.
 
Speaking of veteran leaders anchoring the defense, Redoutey earned his first all-conference honor since making the Golden Coast Conference All-Freshman Team in what is now his senior season. A defender by trade, Redoutey enjoyed his best offensive campaign in 2025, tallying a career-high 26 goals and adding 13 assists to add another wrinkle to Santa Barbara's multi-faceted attack. He also was a leading man in the Nov. 1 upset of the Aggies, scoring all three of his goals in the fourth quarter of that game to turn a three-goal halftime deficit into a three-goal win at the final buzzer.
 
While the outside shooters were headlining the offense, Simoncelli was quietly having a strong rookie season down low. The redshirt freshman center tallied 31 goals in his first season of collegiate water polo, just edging out fellow post player Kai Ross to finish as Santa Barbara's top-scoring center. Adept at giving defenders fits even without the ball, Simoncelli also drew 44 exclusions on the season. On four occasions, he drew three in one game, enough to foul an opponent out of action. Against both Loyola Marymount and UC Irvine in non-conference action, he drew four kick-outs. While he also put up a four-goal game against Fresno Pacific, Simoncelli spread out his 31 goals across 23 of the team's 31 games, including their Big West Semifinal.
 
After being picked fifth in the preseason coaches' poll, the Gauchos finished second in The Big West, earning a first-round bye in the conference tournament, only falling to the eventual conference champions. Santa Barbara finished the season with a 17-14 record, and the 421 goals they scored rank as the second most in one season by any Gaucho Water Polo team ever.