Thomas Finds Niche Tending Goal : Water polo: Esperanza goalkeeper has overcome lack of size with intelligence, balance and perseverance.

ANAHEIM —  Like many Esperanza High School freshmen, Craig Thomas wanted to get involved in the Aztecs’ athletic program. He wanted a sport that would get him in the best possible shape, and he decided cross-country would do just that.

So one summer morning in 1989, Thomas headed over to Yorba Regional Park in Anaheim Hills where he heard the cross-country team was holding tryouts.

Slight problem. It’s a big park, Thomas didn’t know where to meet the team and missed the tryout.

No one ever said freshmen have especially long attention spans.

“I realized I wasn’t going to be on the cross-country team, so I walked onto the pool deck and asked if I could play water polo,” Thomas said. “I figured water polo and swimming would get me in shape just as well as cross-country.

“It’s just kind of a fluke, I guess.”

And although that was not the only chance occurrence to propel Thomas’ high school water polo career, it’s no accident that he has become one of the best young goalkeepers in the nation.

Thomas, a goalkeeper on the U.S. Youth team, which is a step below the Junior National team, has helped Esperanza earn a No. 2-ranking in Southern Section Division II. The Aztecs (21-3, 4-0 in the Empire League) are one victory from their first unshared league title in school history.

The team that stands in the way is El Dorado, which the Aztecs have never defeated in varsity water polo. That’s expected to change this year because El Dorado (9-15, 2-2) is not as not strong as usual and Esperanza has a powerful, senior-dominated team.

At the head of the Aztecs’ senior class is Thomas, who in some ways is an unlikely standout in the goal. At only 6 feet 1 and 165 pounds, he’s not as big as the prototypal goalkeeper. But coaches say he makes up for his lack of size with his intelligence and superior balance. He’s rarely fooled into being out of position.

“If you’re going to score on him, you’re really going to have to beat him,” said Jim Brumm, the coach at Foothill High who is also an assistant for the U.S. Youth team. “He’s not going to let any garbage get by.”

Esperanza Coach Doug Kimberly said although Thomas doesn’t have extraordinary natural talent, his perseverance is boundless. Thomas maintains a weighted grade-point average of better than 4.0.

“Craig has a desire to really excel in anything he does--in school or in sports,” Kimberly said. “The other kids on our team are mostly in the same boat. Craig has spearheaded it and the other players took up the charge.”

Having taken up surfing at 12, Thomas was familiar with the water when he joined the team, but had no competitive swimming or water polo experience. He took to the sport quickly, becoming the starting two-meter man on the freshman-sophomore team. He switched to goalkeeper before his sophomore season and became the varsity goalie when the projected starter injured his shoulder.

“It’s really hard for a sophomore at that level,” Kimberly said. “At that point he was just trying to learn the game and how to play the position, and these guys are firing balls at him.”

It wasn’t always pretty, but the lessons were effective.

Then the next summer, Thomas caught a break. Capistrano Valley needed a goalkeeper for its 15-and-under club team because the regular goalie was a month older than the limit, and Thomas filled in and helped the team to a national championship.

The experience exposed Thomas to even better competition and raised his confidence level for the high school season.

Esperanza finished third behind El Dorado and Los Alamitos, but Thomas was a first-team all-league selection. He might have received all-Southern Section honors if the Aztecs had advanced further in the 4-A playoffs, but they had the misfortune of playing eventual champion San Clemente in a wild-card match and lost, 13-2.

After the further ego boost of being picked as one of two goalkeepers on the U.S. Youth team last summer (Glendale’s Vatche Shirikjian is the other), Thomas is thriving this season. He has allowed an average of fewer than six goals per match, and Esperanza has lost only to Capistrano Valley, Harvard Westlake and Dana Hills, which are all ranked among the Division I top 10.

Against Capistrano Valley, ranked second and featuring fellow U.S. Youth team members Jeremy Braxton-Brown and Jeff Moloughney, the Aztecs fell behind, 4-1, in the first quarter before losing, 8-6.

“We have a history of doing that,” Thomas said. “We used to always think that we didn’t have a chance against really good teams. We’d let down and we would figure out later that we could be in the game.”

Thomas and the Aztecs are hoping that trend is history.