Men's water polo takes three, falls to St. Francis in tourney

When a team finishes its first weekend at 3-1 with three dominating victories, including a thorough beating of a traditional Top-25 team, normally one would say that the weekend was a success.

But for the members of the men's water polo team, whose goals this season are to rise into the nation's Top 10 and become the best team in the East, the one loss — a 12-8 defeat at the hands of St. Francis — preyed on their minds more than any other game this past weekend at the Princeton Invitational at DeNunzio Pool.

"We just came out flat on Sunday [against St. Francis]," head coach Luis Nicolao said. "We really exposed a lot of our weaknesses that were apparent on Saturday, which just proves we still have a lot of work to do."

Princeton — which had been hoping to avenge a semifinal loss to the Colonials (7-1) in last year's Eastern Championships — was not sharp offensively or defensively Sunday, going down 2-0 early while not registering its first goal until one minute, six seconds remained in the first quarter. But the real reason for the Tigers' defeat was a series of mental mistakes throughout the game.

Nicolao attributed eight of the 12 Terrier goals to those mental errors by Princeton. Full of aggressive passing, turnovers and rushed shooting, the Tigers allowed their offensive resiliency — they tied the score on three separate occasions — to be squandered.

"We just really didn't bring our A-game [Sunday]," senior captain Chris Gratian said. "Mentally, we just weren't in it, and it showed in our decision-making in the game."

The final game overshadowed what had been a promising opening weekend for the men's team. The bright point Saturday was the 12-1 victory over Bucknell, which was ranked in the Top 25 last year. Sophomore driver Robert Urquhart and junior two-meter Marshall Roslyn were Princeton's main offensive weapons, scoring three and two goals, respectively.

"Bucknell is a good team and to come out and beat them like that, it's definitely a positive," Gratian said. "We just came out and stopped them cold from the beginning."

A substantial part of the Tigers' success Saturday was also due to the superlative goaltending of junior Jon Pharris. Pharris maintained a shutout until he allowed a goal with 6:31 left in the fourth quarter against Bucknell and had another stellar performance against Slippery Rock, guiding Princeton to a 16-1 victory.

In a 13-7 win over George Washington, Pharris was aided by the effort of last year's Southern Division MVP and leading goal-scorer Kevin Foster. Sophomore two-meter Foster, who led the Tigers with 49 goals his freshman year, continued his offensive prowess with four goals — three of which came in the fourth quarter — to push the Tigers ahead for good.

Ready

With a returning playoff-experienced squad and a strong influx of freshmen — including driver Dan McKenna, who scored nine goals in the Tigers' first three games — Princeton knows that it is ready to make the next step toward national prominence.

"We're just at a time when we need to work out a few kinks," Gratian said. "Then we'll be ready for any challenge put in front of us."

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Unfortunately, that challenge will come sooner rather than later for Princeton, as the Tigers travel to the West Coast — the traditional home of water polo powerhouses — to take on some of the nation's best. First on Friday, the Tigers face No. 6 Long Beach State and then go against another Top 20 team — UCLA. Weekend matches include games against UC-Davis, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and La-verne, all promising to be tough matchups for Princeton.

"California is not going to be easy for us if we're not ready mentally," Nicolao said. "We definitely have to play much better than Sunday's game just to stay competitive."