If you see John Lewis floating amongst the tree tops fear not.
He’s just on Cloud 9.
Lewis, a senior on the St. Louis University High water polo team, was overwhelmed with joy Saturday night. The Junior Billikens had just reclaimed the Missouri water polo state championship with a 9-6 win over Ladue at the St. Peters Rec-Plex. Lewis scored three goals, including the Junior Billikens’ first of the match, to help secure that title, the fifth for SLUH (28-1) in the last six seasons.
It’s been a long and often rough road for Lewis. One of two holdovers from the 2009 title team that, according to SLUH coach Paul Baudendistel might be the best team to ever hit the pool for the Junior Billikens, Lewis spent his sophomore year taking lump after lump after lump.
The 5-foot-11, 175-pound Lewis would spend his days practicing with the junior varsity and then immediately jump over to the varsity practice. The conditioning laps were endless. There were a lot of days that Lewis wanted to be anywhere but in the pool with his lungs burning and his muscles aching.
But something told him it would be worth it.
“They would play all year round. They dedicated a lot of time to polo. I learned a lot from them about work ethic,” Lewis, 18, says of that 2009 senior class. “It was hard but then I did realize I needed to be there.”
Last year, when SLUH watched all that talent graduate, the Junior Billikens were once again good but not great by their standards. SLUH took fourth at the 2010 tournament as DeSmet won the state title. Most programs would be happy if not overjoyed by a fourth-place finish. It was a bitter pill for the juniors and seniors on that team to swallow. They were devastated they hadn’t lived up to the tradition. That they had, in some way, let the program down by not winning the championship.
Lewis, who began playing in middle school, said the offseason was absolutely brutal. Instead of spending the summer working, hanging out and doing what most teenagers do during the summer, members of SLUH’s water polo team were focused on getting better. There were practices late into the night. There was a trip to the Junior Olympics that wasn’t successful because of wins and losses. It turned out to be successful because the team got an up close and personal view of some of the top talent the nation has to offer.
“We got to play the best players in the country,” he said. “We learned so much playing against those high caliber teams.”
SLUH opened the season like a house afire, rattling off 19 consecutive wins before being upended by Chicago’s Fenwick Catholic.
The second half of the season, after crushing their competition, the Junior Billikens had to slug their way to wins. They trailed at halftime more often than Baudendistel would have liked. But, much to his liking, the team never rattled. It always found a way to rally back and win.
With that gigantic target on its back, SLUH entered the playoffs as the top seed. It rolled to the title game where it found itself in a familiar spot, trailing Ladue at halftime. Down 4-2, SLUH scored five goals in the third quarter, another two in the fourth and shutout Ladue in the fourth quarter to hold on for the victory.
Lewis, who scored 40 goals on the season, said he was OK with having to battle tooth and nail to reclaim the state title. The Junior Billikens turned what could have been something negative into a positive.
“It feels good to know that it wasn’t given to us,” Lewis said. “It was my hard work and our hard work that got us where we are.”
