Men's water polo sweeps Southerns to win third title

So much for the dirty South.

This past weekend the men's Water polo team swept clean the Southern Division Championships at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Penn. Bringing home the third Southern Division Championship title in the program's seven year history, the Tigers (17-3) held a spotless record for the weekend and overpowered archrival U.S. Naval Academy in the final round.

Princeton entered the tournament seeded No. 2 behind Navy. The brackets were set up according to the results of the Inter-Regional Competition held at Denunzio Pool October 17-19. Up against Gannon and Penn State-Behrend in the first round, nothing slowed the determined team on their way to the finals.

The Tigers plowed through Gannon, with a score of 12-6 and took out Penn State with a final score of 14-3. Against the Golden Knights, Princeton displayed the depth of its team with goals from six different players including the top scorer for the game, freshman defender Nick Seaver who had three goals. Senior driver Derrick Wong added two first quarter goals, and sophomore twometer defender Jacob Harter scored two goals as well. Sophomore two-meter defender Jamal Motlagh, freshman driver Victor Wakefield and sophomore driver John Stover added one goal each to finish off Gannon.

Midshipmen sink

With two easy first round wins under their belts, the Tigers moved on to a second-round victory against Bucknell, 11-6. Though the Bison put up a little more of a fight, the prize competition was yet to come. The Princeton team had its hearts set on the Sunday afternoon Championship game against Navy.

The Tigers knew it would come down to beating Navy for the title. Having played the Midshipmen three times already this season, Princeton came into Southerns up 2-1 on Navy. However, the last time they met, the Midshipmen took the upper hand in a heartbreaking 8-6 loss at the Inter-Regional Competition two weeks ago, hosted by Princeton at DeNunzio Pool. With revenge on their minds and a strong new approach to tackle Navy's dominate counter attack, the Tigers tasted blood and showed no mercy during the match.

Despite falling behind early, 2-1, Princeton squeezed up to tie the Midshipmen 3-3 by half time after a nice shot by senior sriver Dan Holligan.

"Danny 'Treehorn' Holligan really stepped up his game to fire up the whole team," sophmore driver Mike McKenna said. "In the second half especially, Holligan just opened up the floodgates and made the rest of the team realize that Navy's goalie was just Swiss cheese."

In the third quarter, the Tigers held a 7-6 lead and at certain points were up by as much as four goals.

Scoring was well distributed across the board in the Navy game. McKenna, Holligan and freshman two-meter defender Reid Joseph all added two goals while Stover, Motlagh, freshman defender Chris Kelsh and senior two-meter defender D.J. Halliday contributed one goal each, winning the game by a total of 10-7.

Stover delivered another noteworthy performance in the Midshipmen match, winning all four sprints. Stover drew five ejections and scored one goal. The water polo team is led by Stover with 46 season total goals followed by McKenna with 32 goals.

In addition to the grand offensive showing from the Tiger squad, the defensive end proved too tough a match for Navy.

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The Tigers were well prepared for anything that the Midshipmen threw their way. Princeton has been focusing on defending Navy's counterattack transition, the play that beat the team at Inter-Regionals. Junior goalie Peter Sabbatini also made some major contributions as a stunning brick wall against the Midshipmen.

"I am very glad he is on our team and not Navy's," Mike McKenna said of Sabbatini's wall-like goal keeping.

After a victorious weekend the Tigers set themselves up for a top seed in Eastern Division Championships on Nov. 14-16 held in Annapolis, Md. at the U.S. Naval Academy.