SAN FRANCISCO – After leading the California men's water polo team to its 17th national title last fall, Nikolaos Papanikolaou was named the winner of the Peter J. Cutino Award – given annually to the top male and female player in NCAA water polo – for the third consecutive year Saturday.

Papanikolaou – one of two five-time ACWPC All-Americans in NCAA men's water polo history – joins Tony Azevedo (Stanford, 2001-04) as the only players ever to win three Cutino Awards. He is the only Golden Bear to win the award more than once.

[Papanikolaou] obviously had one of the greatest careers ever at Berkeley in a storied program. I've said it before, I think he's the best player that ever played at Cal," Cal head coach Kirk Everist said. "He's just an amazing athlete on both ends of the pool and has contributed so much to the program and the sport in America."

By adding one more prestigious honor to his legendary list of accolades, Papanikolaou caps off a string of three-peats. He claimed his third consecutive national title, NCAA Championship MVP and ACWPC Player of the Year honors following the Bears' 13-11 win over UCLA in the NCAA championship game last December.

"I think his mentality and patience this year were a little bit different," Everist said. "We took some losses early. You see an athlete's ability to deal with adversity and be in a position where we clearly weren't the best team from September to November. He had different injuries that just kept happening, but his mentality in keeping the team going and his positivity and ability to believe that in the end we can put this whole thing together, that was unique to this year."

During the 2023 season, Papanikolaou set a career high and led the nation with 95 drawn exclusions, including season highs of nine and 11 in the Bears' final two NCAA Championship victories. With 43 goals last season, he brought his career total to 253, good for second in program history.

Papanikolaou, who signed with Greek water polo club Panathinaikos in January, was not present at the Cutino Awards ceremony, which took place Saturday evening at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. The Athens native is currently training for the 2024 Paris Olympics with the Greece National Team.

The night ended with Cal water polo sweeping the Cutino Awards for the first time, as Bear goalkeeper Isabel Williams won the award on the women's side. Papanikolaou and Williams are the sixth pair of student-athletes to earn a Cutino Award sweep for a single school.