Last year, the St. Joseph High School boys’ water polo team won a single game.
This time around, the Knights are doing more than just keeping their heads above water—they’re challenging for the Los Padres League title.
“This year has been amazing,” said head coach John Walker. “Last year, we were teaching them the sport. This year, we want to compete.”
Walker recruited most of his current group as juniors before they’d even heard of the sport, and in just 13 months’ time, his squad has gone from a 1-16 last-place finish to 3-1 and second in the Los Padres League behind Santa Ynez, as of press time.
A former Division-I player at Fresno State and professional in Australia, Walker credits the dramatic improvement to his players’ work ethic.
“They spent all summer in the weight room,” Walker said. “They put in thousands of crunches and sit-ups, and they played all summer long.”
Much of the summer work came at the Paul Nelson Aquatic Center, where players participated in the One Way Water Polo Club, practicing on Sundays and playing games on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The club has served as a feeder program for St. Joseph, where the sport appears to be catching on. Old-fashioned word of mouth—and Walker’s position as the school’s dean of students—helped draw 43 players to his varsity and junior varsity teams, making the Knights one of the largest teams in the Southern Section.
Although St. Joe’s has had a girls’ water polo team for more than a decade, the school was the last of the high schools to field a boys’ squad. The rapid growth and success of the program is even more impressive considering the school won’t have a home pool until the Orcutt Aquacenter is finished.
The sport—often overlooked when competing for attention with football—combines elements of hockey, basketball, and soccer with swimming. There are six field players to a side, plus goalies, who typically line up in two lines of three: two drivers and a center (or 2-meter man) close to the goal, and two “wings” and the “point” man behind them.
The object is simple enough: Score more goals than the other team. On offense, players swim passing patterns and can set picks on defenders. Players can move the ball either by passing it or swimming with the ball held in front of them. Any of the players can take a shot on offense, but the strategy revolves around getting the ball to the center for a shot or, if he’s fouled, for a free shot taken from anywhere in the pool.
Junior Andre Morales, who also plays basketball for the Knights, fills the center position for St. Joseph. He said the two sports are similar in many respects.
“The cuts are the same, it’s just in the water,” Morales said. “It takes strong legs, and it’s on your teammates to get you the ball.”
Since defenders can hold down opponents with one arm, players must possess a strong “eggbeater”—kicking to tread water—to stay afloat with the weight of defenders’ bodies pressing down on them.
“Once you get the basic skills down, it gets really fun,” Morales said. “But it’s a lot of hard work to get to that point.”
As in hockey, there are power plays. Defenders caught sinking or holding down attackers who don’t have the ball are excluded from the game for 20 seconds, giving the offense a six-on-five advantage.
The sport is more physical than it seems on the surface. Broken noses, black eyes, and cuts from swinging elbows aren’t uncommon.
“You get beat up a lot,” Morales said. “There’s a lot of under the water stuff that aren’t really called fouls.”
Like Morales, most water polo players come from a background in basketball and soccer and use skills from those sports in the pool.
At 6-foot-3, true freshman Nolan Cruse transitioned from basketball and volleyball to playing goalie for the Knights.
“A lot of the formations in the water are same,” Cruse said. “You have the positions and the picks [like basketball]. You just have to learn how to watch the ball go around and know where it’s coming from.”
As goalies, Cruse and senior Jake Eszes must block what amounts to a volleyball covered in horsehair, slung at them at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour.
Eszes said water polo requires the same quick reflexes and hand-eye coordination as tennis—another sport he plays at St. Joe’s. He called his experience in goal “intense.”
“You’re always yelling at your team and watching them work, telling them where to go,” Eszes said. “You have to be one step ahead of the game. You always have to be set up before they get ready to shoot, because if you’re not there, you won’t block the ball. It’s all about anticipation.”
Eszes said the sport teaches that practice has its rewards. For St. Joseph, the proof is in the pool.
“Our whole team has just been working really hard over the past few months getting ready for this sport,” Eszes said. “Every player has stepped up.”
One of the standouts this year is senior Shaun MacDonald, who quit football, baseball, and soccer to focus on water polo and swimming. He said he fell in love with the sport from his first scrimmage with the One Way club.
“It’s so much different than any other sport,” MacDonald said. There’s so much incorporated into it. It’s still a team sport, but there’s a lot you can do by yourself that helps the team.”
After suffering through last year, MacDonald and the rest of the Knights now envision making it to in the California Interscholastic Federation playoffs.
“It’s like day and night. We’ve come so far,” MacDonald said. “I’m really proud of my team.”
As of press time—prior to the season’s final regular season game against rival Cabrillo High School—the Knights appeared close to accomplishing the feat.
“If we get third, we have a pretty good shot of going,” coach Walker said. “For a team in its second year to go to CIF, that would be unprecedented.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas is just trying to keep his head above water. Contact him at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.
