M. water polo's streak ends at 11

With a win in last weekend's Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships, men's water polo proved itself to be the East Coast's best team.

But the Tigers (11-1) did not play several teams in that tournament, including the Terriers of St. Francis, whose meager mascot misrepresents the team's water polo prowess.

That match-up happened last night, when the Terriers invaded Denunzio Pool and handed Princeton its first loss of the season, 11-10.

In the game's waning moments it seemed as if a tie might be feasible. With the home crowd of nearly 200 fans on their feet, and the game at 11-10 in St. Francis' favor, junior goaltender Peter Sabbatini launched the ball across the pool. Only 16 seconds remained on the clock, though one score would send the game to overtime. The Tigers made several passes and, with seconds left, lobbed the ball at the goal. The Terriers' goalie misplayed the pass, leaving sophomore driver John Stover, who had four goals in the game, with the ball in front of the net. In a last-second effort he hit the crossbar, and the final buzzer left the Tigers thinking only of what could have been.

The Tigers, who in recent games have jumped out to early leads and to limit a team's offensive production with stellar defense, did neither particularly well in last night's game. Though Sabbatini made eight saves, including a number of key stops in the last moments of the game, their defense was noticeably off.

"Peter [Sabbatini] is a great goalie. To their credit, [St. Francis] shoots the ball well, but I don't think we helped him out a lot today," head coach Luis Nicolao said.

Princeton found itself in an unfamiliar position less than a minute into the game, when the Terriers scored their first goal. Though the Tigers did a good job of regrouping, at least in the game's opening quarter, by answering Terrier goals with scores of their own, Princeton was forced to play catchup the entire evening.

"We came out flat," Nicolao said. "And we can't come out like we did and put ourselves in a hole."

The Terriers had their biggest lead of the game in the early minutes of the third quarter at 7-4. But the Tigers were resilient, never letting the game get too far from their grasps.

Senior two-meter Dan McKenna scored one of his two goals to bring the game to 7-5. Though St. Francis had another tally seconds later, Princeton scored two in a row to bring the game to 8-7 in the middle of the third. But the equalizer could never be found.

"We kept missing some good chances to tie the game," Nicolao said, "and we could never tie it. Unfortunately the end result is a loss."