The Stanford men’s water polo team has started off the season with a solid 5-3 record and a No. 3 national ranking.

Led by head coach John Vargas, the team is often in the nation’s top five; the Cardinal has made appearances at every NCAA Championship Tournament since 2002.The team is no stranger to success, with its last national title won five years ago.The Cardinal has a cumulative record of 89-22 over the four years under Vargas.

“Our team definitely has the ability to make the NCAAs,” said senior goalkeeper Sandy Hohener. “First we need to win our winter conference games. I know we lost to USC last time, but I think the score does not reflect our capabilities. There’s no doubt in my mind that they are beatable.”

With No. 1 USC, No. 2 Cal and No. 4 UCLA all winning national championships in recent years, Stanford is pressing to capture a title. Much of the emphasis is on teamwork and the masterful job of managing players by coach Vargas.

“Every player has a specific role, and we just need to go out there and execute,” said two-meter defender senior Peter Finlayson. “We can’t afford to make small, dumb mistakes, especially against a team like USC.”

Stanford may not be short on talent, but other teams have a size advantage in the pool, and winning must come through trumping the other team’s raw strength with offensive tactics, defensive coordination and pre-game scouting.

Teamwork is the highest ideal for the players, and everyone puts aside his personal agenda for the benefit of the team.

“We definitely are smaller than other teams, but that goes back to playing smart,” Hohener said. “So we have to cut out as many mistakes as possible and execute as a team. Coach does a great job scouting other teams — to attack what they’re going to do to give ourselves a chance to win.

“It is up to us to play within ourselves and not do anything outside our game

plan,” he added. “We’re not going to be able to go one-on-one against guys that are bigger than us, so we have to attack and set as a team. What some may lack in size, there are ways to help out in the defensive and offensive schemes to overcome that.”

A source of pride for the men’s water polo team is their defense, where seniors Ryan Fortune and Forrest Schwartz man the line, making the job a bit easier for Hohener.

Fortune and Schwartz play the two-meter defense with Finlayson, making it particularly hard for the opposing offense to gain position. In a game where mobility is rather limited compared to land sports, gaining position often translates to goals and determines the difference between victory and defeat.

“He [Ryan] may not show up in the stat line because he doesn’t score that many goals, but [he] deserves a lot of credit along with Forrest Schwartz,” Hohener said. “Together, they do a real good job stopping the ball before I have to block.”

Despite the team’s relative youth with eight freshmen and four sophomores, Stanford’s talent level remains high compared to squads in recent memory.

Sophomores Sage Wright, Drac Wigo, Janson Wigo and Ryan McCarthy have gotten valuable experience playing as freshmen and have consistently improved their skill level through the team’s grueling practices.

“We’ve been working a lot on fundamentals,” Wigo said. “Basically breaking parts of the game down during practice and watching tapes to see which parts of the game we can improve on.”

The Cardinal also has a strict regimen out of the pool.

“We’ve been working a lot on our conditioning this year, and that will pay dividends, especially later in [the] season when other teams may break down from fatigue,” Hohener explained.

With a team-first attitude and strong work ethic, the Stanford men’s water polo team seems to be headed toward NCAA glory. It will move one step further with its next game against Princeton at UC-Irvine on Saturday.