Victories Come Easy for Valhalla : There Is No Competition for Norsemen Water Polo Team

The Valhalla High School water polo team has had such an easy time in the Grossmont League this year that Coach Dan Crane didn’t use his top three players in a recent game against El Capitan.

Instead, Crane sent Mike Allen, Will Schnorr and Doug Sutherland to scout the game between two of Valhalla’s closest league rivals, Helix and Mount Miguel.

“Neither of those teams are any good,” Schnorr said later. “Dan said to come back and report on what they were doing and we had nothing to report.”

Meanwhile, without its best players, Valhalla won anyway against El Capitan, 26-5.

It’s easy for the Norsemen to be confident when it comes to talking about league competition. After all, Valhalla (8-0, 14-1) won the San Diego Section championship last year and lost only one starter to graduation. Valhalla is 36-2 under Crane.

“It’s kind of hard for us to really apply ourselves to playing serious, when we’re playing a team our JV could beat,” Allen said. “When we play crummy teams, when he (Crane) puts us in, we control our fast break and just work certain situations. That’s how most of our games are in league. But when we play Helix and Mount Miguel, the good teams, we get to keep the starters in most of the game and play as hard as we can for as long as we can.”

Helix plays at Valhalla today at 3:30 hoping to reverse its first-round 15-11 loss to the Norsemen.

Schnorr doesn’t see that happening.

“I think we’re going to win by a lot more than last time,” Schnorr said. “We played our worst game ever, and they were saying that they ‘blew it and should have won and all that. I can’t see that happening. We beat Mount Miguel 20-9 and Helix lost to them (8-7).”

Considering Valhalla has outscored its opponents, 252-81, it’s easy to see why Allen, Schnorr and Sutherland’s biggest sense of competition might be among themselves.

All three were selected to CIF San Diego Section teams last year. Allen was a first team choice, Sutherland second and Schnorr third. Allen (fifth) and Sutherland (honorable mention) were selected to All-American teams. They are outstanding swimmers, each competing in at least one event in last year’s Section swim finals.

They have been scouted by the University of the Pacific, UC San Diego, UCLA, Pepperdine. Allen and Sutherland want to attend Pepperdine to play water polo and study sports medicine. Schnorr wants to go to MIT to study ocean engineering, but isn’t sure if he’ll play water polo because he says the team at MIT is weak.

Crane, a 1981 All American at UC San Diego, understands the competition among the players.

“They’re a very competitive group,” Crane said. “But I don’t think there’s any external desire to beat the other person.”

Said Allen: “It’s really competitive between us three. But it’s not that we’re ballhogging and not passing to each other it’s just we all want to do good. It’s a good competitive spirit.”

A lot of credit must be given to a coach who can handle a group of exceptionally talented players.

“Dan’s really a smart coach,” said Allen, who scored 85 goals last year. “He knows how all of us are individuals and how we work as a team.”

Crane is more inclined to credit the players.

“I think by far we have the most talented team,” he said. “It’s just a matter of putting our talent where we need to. I don’t really see any team with comparable talent, but you never know what one team is going to put together.”

Last year, Allen, the team captain, was the leader, taking over whenever the Norsemen needed a goal, but this year he’s slumping. Sutherland has had his problems on defense, Crane said. Schnorr, who leads the team with 50 goals and 39 steals, is playing the best of the three.

“His offensive output is what’s surprising me this year,” said Crane, who thinks Schnorr emerged during last year’s playoffs. “If there was a standout in the playoffs, it was Will. He had the best three games he had all year. We had a real big come-from-behind victory against Coronado (12-11) in the semis and I think, down the stretch, Will was by far our standout. And again in the finals (an 8-7 upset of Mount Carmel). They were talking about selecting an all-tournament team, he should have been selected most valuable player, as far as I’m concerned.”

With the lack of league competition, Crane entered Valhalla in the Sunny Hills tournament in Fullerton to test his team.

Valhalla surprised itself with a 4-1 record and won the consolation bracket. Its only loss came to Southern Section power Newport Harbor, 8-6.

“When we came out of the Newport game, even though we lost, we weren’t hanging our heads,” Schnorr said. “We didn’t go up there necessarily to win, but to get some good competition, learn and hopefully make mistakes and learn from them.”

For Valhalla, the Sunny Hills tournament was the best place to learn.

“Those were probably the first really good games we’ve had in a while,” said Sutherland, a triathlete who at one time was ranked No. 1 by the United States Triathlon Series in the 19-under division. “I learned that we are a stronger team than we really thought we were.”

If the score of the Granite Hills game on Tuesday (31-12) is any example of the experience the Norsemen received from the Sunny Hills tournament, the rest of the league, as well as the county, is in trouble.

“We probably have the best chance any team has ever had (to win San Diego Section), the only problem we might run into is our team getting a little too cocky,” Allen said. “If we do get too cocky we will run into trouble. But Dan’s really instituting the note: ‘Don’t be cocky, play as a team, you have to work for everything you can get.’ ”