If you were going to make a movie with a soccer defender at the center of the story, you’d cast someone like Eric Dier as the main character.

The England international and Tottenham Hotspur back is 6-foot-2 with buzz cut hair and a goatee. When he takes his shirt off, you think you’re looking at an American football linebacker. A prototypical menacing back line player.

Slender 5-foot-9 Connor Barnes wouldn’t even get a callback … to play a fictional defender, that is.

When it comes to real life, few have ever been better at the high school level in the South Sound.

This season, with Barnes leading the way, Olympia’s defense shut out quality 3A opponent Timberline and perennial 2A Evergreen Conference champion Tumwater by 1-0 margins to open the season. Only once, in a 3-2 loss to Puyallup, did an opponent score more than twice against the Barnes-led Bears’ defense, which took on five of the state’s eight highest-ranked 4A teams.

Barnes’ reputation spread halfway across the country as he was recruited by NCAA Division III power Trinity University of San Antonio – which finished 16-1-2 last fall after a penalty kick shootout loss to Pacific Lutheran in the first round of the NCAA tournament marred a previously unbeaten season.

He also earned recognition closer to home as the 4A South Puget Sound League South defensive player of the year and The Olympian’s 2022 All-Area player of the year.

“Connor’s a quiet assassin,” said Olympia’s longtime coach Ty Johnson. “He shows a calm, collected composure. I don’t know if his heart rate even goes up during games. He’s always in proper position. He knows when to go in and make a tackle. I’ve rarely, if ever, seen him make a bad decision.”

Johnson believes Barnes’ lack of similarity to Dier and other imposing center backs has cost major universities a strong prospect.

“If he was the prototypical center back size, 6-2 or 6-3, he’d be playing Division I,” Johnson said. “It’s about winning balls in the air. Connor can do that, but at first sight they might think he shouldn’t be the one playing in the middle. But he can mark up against bigger players. They were frustrated going up against our defense.”

Barnes, who picked up soccer at age 4 following in the footsteps of his brother Max, who also played at Olympia and now runs cross country and track for St. Mary’s, plays club for Washington Premier. He didn’t choose defense, just went where he was sent by coaches.

At first, during Barnes’ freshman season, Johnson played him on the outside, falling into the usual mode of thinking about an undersized defender.

“Then I slid him into the middle the very next game, and he’s been there ever since,” Johnson said. “The way to win games is not to concede goals, so you always want to be strong in the middle. When you have a player like Connor who prevents opponents from getting opportunities, that’s where you need to play him.”

Combined with fellow defenders Ryan Merchant, Ben Scott, Allan He and Rogan Wyatt, Barnes helped goalkeeper Anders Saylors-Olsen compete in the challenging 4A SPSL. The group communicated well even if Barnes, though a team captain, isn’t naturally talkative.

“I chatted with him one day near the end of the season for about 20 minutes,” said Johnson. “I said ‘Man, this is probably more than we’ve talked if you add up all four years.’ This year, being team captain, he did start talking more, but he does his job through his play.”

Both aspects fit what Barnes believes are two keys to being a quality defender: “organization and 1v1 defending.”

He’s honest with himself going into the college experience.

“I need to get better at a lot of things,” he said. “I need to be faster and stronger to keep up with the faster speed of the game.”

He says he’ll miss playing with his high school teammates but looks forward to “seeing a new place and meeting new people” when he arrives in San Antonio in early August.

Perhaps no vignette summed up Barnes’ personality and what he meant to his teammates than one from the Bears’ 8-0 rout of Graham-Kapowsin in his last regular season game, Senior Night. Like many defenders, Barnes hadn’t scored much during his high school career. In fact, he never had, so Johnson chose him to take a penalty kick.

He converted.

“Our team got a yellow card for excessive celebration,” Johnson recalled. “But Connor just smiled and stayed calm.”

PAST OLYMPIAN BOYS SOCCER PLAYERS OF THE YEAR:

2001: Evan Knudson, North Thurston

2002-03: None selected

2004: Cesar Cifuentes, Shelton

2005: None selected

2006: Bryce Gardin, Chehalis

2007: Kramer Cross, Timberline

2008: Austin Kelley, Olympia

2009: Daniel Gonzalez, Yelm

2010: Josh Phillips, Capital

2011: Nate Boatright, Capital

2012: Nathaniel Gunderson, Tumwater

2013: Kenny Heo, North Thurston

2014: Jamison Corbin, Olympia

2015: Neil Boyd, Olympia

2016: Nigel El-Sokkary, Capital

2017: Matteo Del Giudice, Olympia

2018: Jackson Winterrowd, North Thurston

2019: Jack Harrison, North Thurston

2020: None: season cancelled

2021: Jack Armour, Tumwater

This story was originally published June 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM.