RMHS water polo team discovers its inspiration
Squad has sights set on Pacific View League championship
By Thomas Gase tgase@theacorn.com

WENDY PIERRO/Acorn Newspapers PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT- Rio Mesa High junior Jason Schein, left, and senior Lloyd Kirk go through offensive and defensive drills during Wednesday afternoon's workout at RMHS.

This past summer the Rio Mesa High boys' water polo team had a simple motto: Whatever Pacifica High is doing, we need to do more.

After finishing in second place last season in the Pacific View League to Pacifica, the Spartans realized a lot of work had to be done to attain the top spot in the standings this year.

"Our motivation this season was built on them (Pacifica)," junior Danny White said.

Teammate "Lloyd Kirk would always ask us, 'Who's working harder right now, Pacifica or us?' That got the whole team to practice even more because we knew in order to win league we would have to work harder than anyone."

The hard work has paid off. Rio Mesa busted out of the gates with a 12-5 record and a 3-0 record in league play heading into Thursday's game against Pacifica, a team they beat, 11-10, at home two weeks ago.

"It was a big confidence builder for us to beat Pacifica," head coach Derrick Timmons said. "We practiced very well that week, and I thought we played even better in that game."

This year the Spartans are led by two Zone Junior Olympic players in White and sophomore Nick Tomasello. The two have been playing water polo together since they were in seventh grade.

"We've been playing together for a while and we've been playing under the same coach for a while, too, as Coach Timmons was our club team's coach as well," Tomasello said.

"So we have very good chemistry. We practice with each other every day and help pump each other up. It seems we know each other's tendencies very well and we know exactly what each of us is going to do in a certain situation in a game."

Timmons said White is a special player who gets others involved.

"One on one, (White) beats anyone in the league," Timmons said. "This year he isn't just getting double-teamed, he is getting tripleteamed and quadrupleteamed.

"He is a great scorer but what I've been most impressed with him is how he gets other people involved. I think he realizes how important it is to build the confidence of other players on the team by getting them the ball with an opportunity to score."

White said getting double teamed is annoying, but he's used to it.

"It is somewhat irritating because I want to score. But at the same time, I'm used to it having played on the national team," White said.

Spartans taking advantage of White's playmaking abilities include sophomore Zack Began, junior Jason Schein, senior David Murillo and freshman Lucas Villa.

While the offense is lethal, the defense is just as good for Rio Mesa, according to Timmons.

"Whether or not this is an offensiveminded team or a defensive-minded team is tough to say," Timmons said. "I want to say it's the offense that is the strength of our team, but it's hard to say that with guys like Lloyd Kirk playing great defense and Cody Womack doing such a great job in goal for us.

"Lloyd doesn't score that much, but his main job is to find the other team's top scorer and shut him down. Most of the time he has."

White said the team's chemistry has come along way since his first season on the varsity team two years ago when the Spartans finished fourth in league.

"The chemistry has improved amazingly over the last two years," White said. "My first year here we were always fighting with each other. Last year that stopped and we built a lot of charisma."

According to Tomasello, a glimpse of the positive team chemistry came after a win last week against Oxnard.

"After we beat Pacifica we came back the next game and beat Oxnard, but we probably should have won by more than one goal," Tomasello said.

"After that game we had a big team meeting where everyone seemed to have input. We realized that we may be the biggest factor in the Pacific View League now after beating Pacifica. Now everyone wants to knock us off and we have to bring our best game every game."

White said for Rio Mesa to continue playing the way it has, it will take just one word.

"Heart," White said. "We need to have a lot of heart and we need to want it more than anyone. I feel this is the year we can go far in CIF and if we put enough heart into it we can do it."

Kirk agreed with his teammate.

"We are definitely a stronger team this year," Kirk said. "Our offense is really good, but our defense has also done a good job in saving us in close games. I'm hoping all of this can help us be league champions."