On one side of the Las Positas pool, the Merced Blue Devils huddled near their head coach. Decisive instruction was delivered, detailing what everyone needed to adjust to improve their performance. The intensity seen was expected out of a coach and a team during a timeout.
On the other side, the Hawks were busy laughing.
Head coaches Nathan Brandon and Jason Craighead were speaking to their players, but the intensity evident on the Blue Devil sideline was nowhere to be seen on the Hawks’ side. Players were cracking smiles, messing around with each other, while still making the time to listen to their coaches when they spoke. It’s the way this Hawks group has carries itself, focusing on having a good time while also putting on a competitive performance.
Once in the pool, though, it’s all business. The Hawks outscored the Blue Devils in every quarter of the game, ultimately winning 23-11. The Hawks’ Oct. 9 win over Merced improved their record to 7-7. They’re well past last season’s win total, when they finished 3-23. The even record was good enough for second place in Coast Conference-North, behind Ohlone, which is 3-0 in conference play.
The biggest difference between this year’s Hawks and last is their heightened experience along with a greater cohesion on the team. The vibes are immaculate. And with them comes a higher sense of confidence, leading to the team being assertive in their season’s pursuits.
The Hawks don’t seem too satisfied with their improvements. This group, led by a mix of experienced veterans and fresh talent pulled from the Hawks’ swim and dive team, have their eyes set on a higher goal — to finish second in conference, while also earning the program’s second NorCal Regional playoff berth in the last nine years.
“I don’t have a wins record (in mind)” Brandon said. “We want to try to make NorCal. That’s the real goal.”
“It’s been so much fun,” Zach Ulrich, a redshirt freshman from last season, said. “It’s just so boring when you’re looking on, seeing everyone have fun playing, and you just want to get out there. But now I get the chance, and honestly, I’m glad it ended up that way. Our team this year is so much fun, and I’m really glad that I had the chance to play this year.”
Ulrich is the team’s current highest goal-scorer with 38. Right behind him is Scott Ragatz with 37 and Vincent Vandersall with 33. Vandersall was the team’s second-highest scorer last season with 65, while Ragatz is a long-time water polo player who had taken the last five years away from the sport.
Their goal-scoring ability makes winning games simpler, according to Brandon. The team has seen their goals per game go from 9.9 to nearly 14 this season. Craighead explained how the team’s greater offensive balance forces their opposition’s defense into difficult situations — if you take two options out on one side, you free up another two on the weak side.
“We’re in a much better position this year,” Craighead said. “More players, better players, better quality. That makes a huge difference, just in the mentality and the approach to the season.”
While some Hawks have built a natural sense for the game, others have some innate physical traits that make them valuable weapons on the team, with the recruits from the swim and dive team giving the team that extra physical boost they need. In particular Zach Zauhar-Kurr and Logan Borreli — it never hurts to have two state qualifiers, one being a state champion, pushing the counterattack.
“They’re the fastest two people out there,” Craighead said. “Their ability to counterattack offensively, defensively (being) able to get down and eliminate other teams’ counterattack offense, is huge.”
Ulrich believes he was a key piece in recruiting his fellow swim and dive teammates to the water polo team, with Zauhar-Kurr promising him that if he was still at LPC this semester he would join the team.
“It’s just a whole different environment to have them here,” Ulrich said. “We’re having fun, and I’m really glad they were able to join us.
“We definitely weren’t as close as we are this year,” Ulrich continued. “We’ve had a lot of team bonding, a lot of time together, and we’re really starting to mesh together and work as a team.”
The games leading up to the Merced game certainly did their best to shake the Hawks’ confidence, with the team coming off two straight losses while losing four of their last five. One came against West Valley, a simply superior program. The other three weren’t just losses, but close ones. The kind that can hurt deeper than the blowouts, especially when the team fails to meet its standard.
“The problem right now is we’re playing to our competition’s level, but not to our level,” Brandon said. “If we can play at our level the whole game, these close losses won’t be close games.”
The theme, particularly in those close losses, was starting too slow. In their 16-13 loss to Citrus on Sept. 28, the Hawks found themselves down 12-2 at halftime. Against El Camino, they repeated the script, coming just one shy of completing a 8-4 halftime comeback, before ultimately falling 14-13.
“It’s kind of a running joke that we’re lulling them to sleep, and then we come on strong through the second half,” Craighead said.
But instead of allowing those losses to shake who they are, the Hawks kept being themselves. They didn’t tense up against Merced. They didn’t take the fun out of the game. Rather, they stayed true to who they are and what got them to their early season success — playing with balance, cohesion and fun.
With less than a month left of the regular season, the Hawks know that they have to continue being consistent to reach their goals. But as is the case with this group, they aren’t fazed. While there is a focus on having fun and enjoying the game, they still have their attention locked in on NorCal.
“I know we can do it,” Zauhar-Kurr said. “We just got to do the right things right now.”
Top photo: The Hawks are ‘having fun’ and have already more than doubled their win total from last season. (Photo by Jakob Arnarsson/ The Express)
Jakob Arnarsson is the Editor-in-Chief of The Express. Follow him on X, formally Twitter, @JakobA2004
