The team was guided by five seniors, captains Ken Wattana and Lucas Fodor, driver Josh Rapperport, whole set Marcos Motta and driver Jack Smale. The seniors led the team to a fourth place finish in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza division.
Despite CCS playoff qualification, the fourth place finish disappointed the team, according to assistant coach Craig Rockhold.
“Our goals at the beginning of the season were to get to the SCVAL championship game, as well as qualify for CCS,” Rockhold said. “Unfortunately, we came up short by losing to Monta Vista [High School in Cupertino] in the league semifinals – but it was one heck of a game.”
Rockhold attributes much of the improvement this season to a positive team atmosphere. An innovative pre-season training program supplied the positive energy that powered the Vikings throughout their games.
“One of the contributing factors to the team atmosphere is that we changed our training program for the pre-season,” Rockhold said.
Despite the improvements made from last season, there are still things the team needs to improve on to play at an upper echelon of CCS water polo, according to Rockhold.
“We need to improve our half-court offense, especially passing and holding position in front of the cage,” Rockhold said. “We also need to speed up our [offensive] execution and be ready to play “shut down” defense right at the beginning of the game.”
Head coach Giovanni Napolitano had similar thoughts about the season, as well as what the team should focus on for next season.
“We started to play as a team,” Napolitano said. “However, we need to improve our offense.”
Smale has high hopes for the team next year.
“The future team is only going to get better,” Smale said. “A lot of these guys have played with each other before, so they have experience together. Most of the underclassman have more experience with the game then a lot of the team did this year.”
In order to fill the place of the departed graduating seniors, Smale envisions a few leaders that can step up next year.
“I think that [junior] Aaron [Zelinger] will do a good job next year filling the gap that is going to be left behind inside and outside of the pool,” Smale said. “[Sophomore] Bret [Pinsker] will also be able to help Aaron with the season next year.”
Even though the season has ended, many of the players on the team will continue to train for water polo and join Paly’s swim team, according to Napolitano.
Napolitano said he feels very positive about the season as a whole, and he feels confident that with a few more years of experience, the team will be hard to beat.
“This was a great season, for a young team,” Napolitano said. “I look forward to building the team for the next few years. We will definitely make the final in a few years.”