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Men’s water polo goes 1–2 in weekend road trip, dimming conference title hopes

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Senior Matt Payne tallied 3 goals and 3 assists in the Tigers' loss to Brown on Sunday

This past Saturday, the men’s water polo team (10–6 overall, 3–4 conference) played MIT (5–9, 1–5) and Harvard (13–4, 5–1) at Harvard and took on Brown (11–7, 4–2) at home on Sunday. The Tigers scraped by with a win against the Engineers and then suffered two hard-fought losses to the Crimson and the Bears.

Sophomore utility Alec Mendelsohn scored the first goal of the weekend at 6:32 in the first quarter against MIT, but MIT responded with two goals to take the lead. MIT scored early in the second quarter, but senior attacker Matt Payne and junior center Logan MacDonell answered with two points to tie the score at 3–3.

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Princeton and MIT kept the tie at 4–4 through the third quarter, but Payne and freshman attacker Mitchell Cooper each scored, and sophomore center Miles Cole put two more away to give the Tigers to an 8–6 lead. MIT tried clambering back, adding another tally with 33 seconds left on the game clock but fell short, with the game ending at 8–7. Head coach Dustin Litvak commented on how the team could improve their defense.

“Where we fell short was in allowing them to score four of their goals from fouls on the five-meter line.  We have to do a better job at shot blocking in these situations,” he said.

Later that afternoon, the Tigers took on the Crimson, a rematch following last weekend’s double-overtime heartbreaker, which saw Harvard come back from a staggering deficit. Earlier that day, Brown snapped Harvard’s six-game winning streak.

Freshman center Wyatt Benson put the first tally on the scoreboard with a turn out of set at 6:24. Harvard responded with an outside goal on the very next possession and another skip cross-cage goal. Payne buried a quick pass from a drive to end the first quarter with the score tied at 2–2. Harvard added two more tallies on aggressive counters to go up 4–2. With Princeton failing to convert several power plays, the Crimson kept up the momentum to lead the Tigers 6–3 going into the half.

Halfway through the third quarter, senior utility Ryan Wilson scored on a counter attack to cut the gap to 6–4. Harvard countered with a goal with 2:46 left in the third. Cooper added another tally at 1:32, but Harvard stole the ball from freshman goalie Billy Motherway to make it 8–5 heading into the final quarter. Payne scored twice within the first couple minutes of the fourth, making the Tigers as close as they have been all game at 8–7. Harvard added another goal, but Benson scored again to keep a one-goal margin at 9–8. Motherway made some strong saves in goal, but Princeton’s offense failed to score, ultimately losing 9-8.

“I thought we showed a lot of resilience to fight back in a tough environment, but ultimately we could not complete the comeback. Like the MIT game, I thought we played great defense for a majority of the game, however, just like last weekend, we allowed too many goals in transition which is what Harvard does best … We just have to find a way to cut out some of the mental errors that lead to high percentage opportunities for them,” Litvak said.

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The next day, the Tigers saw another tough conference loss. By the end of the first quarter, the Bears were up 3–0. Brown would still be up by three goals at the half, 6–3. Senior attacker Mikey Swart snagged the first goal out of the third quarter to push the score to 6–4, and Cooper and freshman attacker Keller Maloney added tallies to make it 7–6 heading into the fourth. Bolstered by goals from Payne and sophomore utility Casey Conrad, the Tigers seemed poised to make a comeback. But, they failed to push through, losing 11–10. Maloney and Payne each finished with three goals and three steals.

“We started out slow and never fully recovered… After adjusting to their game plan, we outscored them 9–6. It clearly wasn’t enough, however, but with small improvements to our defensive communication, and our offensive structure, we could clean up a lot of their easy goals in transition,” Maloney said of the Brown game.

Litvak commented on the team dynamic looking forward to rest of the season.

“We pride ourselves on being as prepared as possible for our opponents and have an excellent group of guys at practice that simulate our upcoming opponents plays and tendencies… I am excited to see where we can go from here as we are at about the midway point of the season and I would not want to play us at the end of the year,” he said.

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The Tigers travel again to Harvard next weekend for the Crimson Invitational, taking on the University of Toronto (3–5) in an exhibition match, Claremont-Mudd Scripps (10–2, 6–0), and Bucknell (13–2, 7–1). All games will be available to watch on ESPN+.