Ross’ number that matters: No. 1

Listen to Lexie Ross for a few minutes and she’ll give some valuable life lessons.

The Laguna Beach High senior girls’ water polo player is articulate, which might be expected of someone going to Stanford in the fall. She has a 4.5 grade-point average, good enough for valedictorian at some schools but she said her class rank is in the low-20s at Laguna Beach.

She couldn’t care less. Ross is not so big on numbers.

“I try not to get too into that stuff, because there’s so many things in life that are more important than some decimal on a report card,” Ross said. “If there’s one thing I learned with applying to Stanford, it’s that yeah grades are important, but it’s really the balance that makes everything. That’s really what makes life worth living, the balance.”

Throwing some other numbers out there, Ross, the only senior for the Breakers, had 38 goals, 25 assists and 27 steals headed into Wednesday’s final league game against Costa Mesa. Junior teammate Jessie Holechek leads Coach Ethan Damato’s club in all three of those categories, but that doesn’t really matter, either.

“We all are equals,” said Ross, a team captain. “In the scheme of things, it’s not goals scored that count, it’s not steals made or shots blocked. It’s how hard you’re working and, at the end of the day, who’s sitting next to you.

“Ethan’s trying to instill this superhero mentality. Everyone brings something different to the table. Those talents can be so diverse, but when they come together, it’s unstoppable.”

Plenty of high school athletes will say things like this, but you get the sense Ross actually believes it. The balance she strives for in her own life has also helped the Breakers (18-8), the defending CIF Southern Section Division II champions who play at Corona del Mar in their final regular-season game today. Laguna will again enter next week’s Division II playoffs as the top-seeded team.

It’s been an interesting journey for Ross, the lefty who moved with her family from the Bay Area in 1999 and began playing water polo in the fifth grade.

She played for Laguna’s age-group program before starting at El Toro-based SET as a freshman, and was part of that SET team that took first in the platinum division at last summer’s Junior Olympics.

She was also an alternate on last year’s USA Water Polo Junior training team, but has since pulled out of the Olympic development program.

“I wasn’t a player,” she said. “I was a number, a ranking. I really wasn’t a fan of that.”

But everyone on Laguna is on a first-name basis, and Ross is also a four-year varsity player. Damato said he remembers that freshman year at Belmont Plaza in 2007 when Ross, who was the team’s only substitute that year, came off the bench to score two goals in the Division II championship game loss to Agoura.

Ross remembers it, too, maybe a little bit differently. She was the nervous freshman on a team that starred seniors Jessica McKee and Breanna Duplisea.

“I was the first and last person off the bench and I was so nervous,” she said. “The other girls were so much bigger than me at the time and I was just so intimidated. I remember going in at CIF finals. I’d go in, score, and then get so nervous and have [Damato] take me out. It’s funny how far I’ve come, from being that nervous little girl to finding my place.”

She was a first-team All-Orange Coast League and All-CIF selection last year, when Laguna won CIF.

Yet that team lost talented seniors Annika Dries “” who Ross will join at Stanford Natasha Schulman (UCLA), Taylor Dodson (Cal) and Sarah Zuziak (UC Santa Barbara).

Even though this year’s squad may not have a star in set like Dries, the Breakers have proved the doubters wrong and look primed for another title.

“They didn’t see some giant torch shining out of our team,” Ross said. “They saw a bunch of little candles, but that can add up to a bigger light.”

She has been a valuable utility player for the Breakers. When she goes into set, team’s typically crash on her right away.

Ross has to fight for space in her family, too. She has two older sisters and a younger brother, plus two cousins whom her parents adopted after her aunt and uncle died of cancer in 2008.

Yet in the pool, she doesn’t force anything.

She’s more than willing to make the pass to set things up for Shusko, sophomore Yoshi Andersen or any of the other Breakers.

“Whatever role we’ve asked her to take, she’s embraced,” Damato said. “I think at the end of the day, she wants to do whatever she can to help our team win games.”

For Ross, it’s all about finding that balance.

Talk to her and she’ll impart some of that knowledge gained from four advanced-placement classes this year.

“There’s really no definitive leader on our team,” she said. “It’s really a whole group of leaders. We’re like the parliament, rather than some democracy.”