The leaders of the Napa High boys water polo team are a physically imposing 6-foot-2 junior with a laser-like shot, and a whip-smart senior who makes up for his 5-foot-9 height with quickness and knowing what you’re going to do with the ball before you even get it.
Lucas May leads the Indians with 76 goals in the 2-meter offensive position, also known as the hole set. May also defends the same position at the other end of the pool, and Napa coach Mike Garibaldi said May “has good speed and is a smart player.”
Zephyr Barnes might have the edge in those categories on his teammate. The team captain leads the Indians in steals, with an average of 10 a game, and drawn ejections, and is second in scoring with 61 goals.
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“He plays both offense and defense with intensity,” Garibaldi said of Barnes, “Zephyr is the general of our team. His leadership and direction in the field of play is very important to our success.”
That success has included a 4-2 win over defending Monticello Empire League champion Vintage at the Healy Tournament in September at Napa Valley College.
The game was scoreless until the second half,when May scored all of Napa’s goals. Barnes added six steals and two caused ejections.
As proud as Napa was of the win, Barnes and May downplayed it because it was early in the season and their team played like it was early in the season.
“We actually were kinda lucky because both teams made a lot of mistakes, and usually the team that makes the least mistakes wins,” Barnes said. “It was really nerve-wracking because (several other teams) were there and watching the game and we were trying too hard.”
“We weren’t finishing our shots,”May said.
The Crushers got revenge at the Christian Brothers Tournament on Saturday, 16-5.
The Indians (3-0 MEL) will face the Crushers (3-0 MEL) with much more at stake on Tuesday at Vintage, following the 3:30 p.m. girls game. Last year,Napa squeaked out a 9-8 victory in triple overtime in the first league meeting, but Vintage won the rematch, 6-5 in one overtime. The Crushers won the title with a 5-1 MEL mark,while Napa was second at 4-2.
“This is the most important game of the season,”May said.
While “Big Game” events between Napa and Vintage are intense in just about every sport, Barnes said he tries not to focus on anything but doing his job.
“When I get in the pool, I don’t think about anything outside the pool. I just focus on the game,” he said. “You can’t take personal grudges into the pool. What goes on in the game stays in the game, and doesn’t leave the pool.No one wants to lose, so they keep working harder and harder.
“It’s going to be a good game (on Tuesday). It’s going to be close.”
Barnes, the son of Cathy Trachok and Russ Barnes, could be the most serious player in the pool come Tuesday. This past summer, instead of playing with fellow Napa players, he commuted to Davis to play with the Blue Devils’ high-powered team.
Davis went on to play in the Junior Olympics in Southern California in August, finishing in the top third of out of about 60 of the country’s best programs.
“They’re a lot more serious over there,” Barnes said of the Blue Devils,who ended Napa’s 2009 season with a 20-2 rout in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I quarterfinals. “I started off as one of the substitutes, then I finished the season as a starter.”
Barnes hopes to be appointed to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis,Md., and play water polo for the Midshipmen, who he said are one of the top 20 NCAA Division I programs in the country.
But he’s currently not thinking about college or the playoffs, and the team’s goal of winning the first quarterfinal in school history.
“Right now we’re focusing on winning league,” Barnes said. “If we win league, it doesn’t matter what happens after that.”
If that happens, will the Indians try to throw Garibaldi in the pool, as Vintage did with coach Dean Wagner after last year’s win over Napa?
“No,”May said of his 64-year-old coach.“We’d probably break his back.”
May, the son of Pete and Karen May and brother of 2009 Napa High grad and water polo defensive standout Spencer May, said he doesn’t get too many chances to get steals.
“I don’t swim back up the pool usually because I don’t have to, so if the ball comes to me I just shoot it,” he said. “I might play defense on the perimeter, but not that much. It gets to be physical,which is cool. It depends on how good the hole defender is and how close the game is, or if they run a play where one of the perimeter guys scoots in and they double up on me. Vintage probably the best team we play at covering the hole set.”
May said he probably won’t try to play NCAA water polo in college after his 2012 graduation.
“I’ll probably play club or intramurals in college,” he said. “It’s just too many hours.”
He played freshman basketball, but didn’t like it. “I don’t like sweating and running that much,” he said.
Barnes said the Indians have several strong players, particularly junior goaltender Dan Kelham.
“He played quarterback as a freshman in football, and probably before that, too, so he’s got a beautiful shot,” Barnes said of Kelham. “He’s scored like four goals, cage to cage (on pool-length shots). A lot of our goals start with Dan blocking a shot, or me stealing the ball and passing it to Lucas.”
Barnes said one of the reasons he leads the team in steals is because the ball always comes to the player he’s guarding.
“If he’s not paying attention, I’ve got it. It’s about reading the players. You see they’re about to make a mistake and then you’ve got to capitalize on that and then it goes from defense to offense like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. In college, the refs don’t call a lot of stuff, so you’ve got to make things happen yourself.”