Lightning hire Filipovic for water polo, swim

Sage Hill School has hired Pavle Filipovic to coach boys’ water polo and boys’ and girls’ swimming, the school announced Monday.

Filipovic will also hold the position of aquatics coordinator for the Lightning and their new Sage Hill Aquatics Center, which opened in April and features a 33-meter by 25-yard pool.

He will replace Tom Norton, who has coached water polo at Sage Hill since 2006 and swimming since 2011. Sage Hill athletic director Megan Cid wrote in an email that Norton resigned following the swim season due to other work commitments.

Filipovic is no stranger to local water polo, as he was previously an assistant coach at Newport Harbor and he’s also coached at a powerful club team, Huntington Beach-based Vanguard Aquatics, since January of 2016.

However, this will be the first high school head coaching job for Filipovic, 31, who also coaches in the USA Water Polo Olympic Development Program.

“I was very excited with the addition of the new pool,” said Filipovic, who grew up playing water polo in Serbia and later played at Long Beach City College and Long Beach State. “I know they invested a huge chunk of money into the new facility, and I just thought this was a great chance to improve and grow the program and culture here at Sage Hill. It was hard before, when they didn’t have the pool on campus and had to train at University High. Now, I can run pretty much a year-round program for water polo and swim.

“It’s a good opportunity. Now I have the chance to build a program. Obviously, Sage is high [in] academics, but I think there’s great room to build the athletics. I think that’s what the school is definitely trying to do, take the next step.”

Norton led Sage Hill boys’ swimming to three Academy League titles and his swimmers broke 13 school records, Cid wrote in the email. In boys’ water polo, the Lightning finished second to Webb in league each of the last two seasons. The school has not had a girls’ water polo team for several years, though girls have played on the boys’ team in recent years.

“[Norton’s] expertise, knowledge and input was essential in helping us open the Aquatic Center this past April,” Cid wrote in the email. “He led our teams to success, has provided a strong foundation for aquatics and has left our teams in a great place as Coach Pavle Filipovic now takes over.”

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo