San Diego Player of the Week : Fletcher’s Not Afraid to Take His Shot : Valhalla Defensive Specialist Plays a Role in the Offense, Too

When James Fletcher started playing water polo, he was just a scrawny fourth grader playing against much larger, older players. Some of them were high school players. Fletcher had to either figure a way to keep up or buy a snorkel.

The answer was defense.

“It’s frustrating when the others in the pool think of you as a joke,” Fletcher said. “I thought that if I could play defense well, I could do other things well, too. It helped my confidence.”

Now, eight years later, Fletcher figures he has nearly perfected the art of agitating and frustrating opposing water polo players.

“It’s never in the stats,” Fletcher said. “But it makes a difference in the game. It gives you advantage because if they are thinking about how physical you are playing, they are forgetting about the game. I don’t punch . . . I just try to disrupt the other player’s game in any way possible.”

Last Saturday, however, Fletcher helped Valhalla win with something that did show up in the statistics.

Fletcher, The Times’ player of the week, scored with 1:21 left in the second sudden-death overtime period to give Valhalla a 12-11 victory over rival Mount Miguel in the San Diego Section quarterfinals at Mesa College. He had three goals in the match.

“That was the biggest goal of my career,” Fletcher said of the game-winner. “It was a 3-on-2 situation, and I was all alone. I would have looked pretty bad if I didn’t score.”

Fletcher’s defense was just as important, however.

He picked up two fouls in the first quarter. A third would have meant ejection. But Fletcher still managed to limit one of Mount Miguel’s top players, Donovan Russell, to only one goal. He also forced Russell to commit two offensive fouls. After another foul, Russell was disqualified.

“Donovan went to work on him to try to get him to foul out,” Mount Miguel Coach Brian Wilbur said. “But he ended up fouling out himself. The boys came to me and complained a lot about hitting and kicking. He (Fletcher) does a lot of things underwater that the refs don’t see. But he’s smart enough to get away with it.”

Dan Crane, Valhalla coach, said that guile has always been Fletcher’s strength.

“He loves to play physical,” Crane said. “The more physical the other players are back, the more he likes it. He knows when to foul and when he can’t.”

Fletcher’s defensive ability helped him make the varsity team as a freshman. And it helped him to be a starter since his sophomore year.

But Crane said Fletcher’s improvement on offense has been the difference for Valhalla (21-7) this season. Fletcher has as many goals (42) as steals this year.

Valhalla has won the section title the last two seasons, but lost 15 players and 6 of the 7 starters from last year’s championship team. That put more responsibility on Fletcher, Crane said.

“We only had four guys coming back, and three of them hadn’t played that much,” Crane said. “For us to be successful, he had to score. He is the guy we always look to get the job done. He’s the field quarterback.”

Fletcher doesn’t take that leadership role lightly. He said he would rather lead by example than yelling and screaming. For him, leading by example means hitting and kicking in practice.

“I try to frustrate them,” Fletcher said of his teammates. “That makes them learn more. If I can show them up when they are driving on me in practice, they’ll think twice about how to drive in a game.”

Valhalla’s players will have more to think about than the last time they went against Fletcher in practice when they play Coronado tonight at 6:30 at UC San Diego. After losing to the Norsemen in last year’s title game, Coronado has beaten Valhalla by wide margins (15-9 and 16-6) this season.

“I think that gives us an advantage in one way,” Fletcher said. “That makes us just that much more fired up to play them.

“I’m just going to play my game but stay out of foul trouble. I have to. I’m about an average-sized player. They’re all bigger than me.”

James Fletcher

Valhalla High

Position: Field

Height, Weight, Class: 6-0, 165, Sr.

Last Week: Scored three goals, including the game- winner with 1:21 left in the second sudden-death period in Valhalla’s 12-11 quarter final water polo victory over Mount Miguel last Saturday.