Shooting for title at ECAC tournament

Armed with a solid start to its season, the men's water polo team (7-3 overall, 1-0 Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference) dives into this weekend's ECAC Tournament hoping to emerge victorious.

Though it is still early in the Tigers' season, the ECAC tournament is important for Princeton, because it is their first opportunity to play multiple conference opponents, whom they will likely confront later in the season. Matches at the tournament do not count toward the Tigers' conference record, however.

Additionally, the tournament gives Princeton the benefit of seeing the rest of its competition in action.

All eight teams in the ECAC — St. Francis, Navy, Princeton, Bucknell, Brown, Harvard, Iona and Johns Hopkins, in order of seeding — are competing this weekend. The seeding is determined by the team's finish at the 2005 Eastern Championships, the last and most important matches of the season.

Brown is hosting this year's tournament in Providence, R.I.

"Our hope is to win the tournament," head coach Luis Nicolao said. "We also want to leave the tournament thinking everyone played well," he added.

To achieve their objective of winning the tournament, No. 14 Princeton must defeat unranked Harvard (2-2-1) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. If the Tigers topple the Crimson, they will play the winner of the game between No. 10 Navy and unranked Iona later that day.

Winning their first two games gives Princeton the opportunity to compete in the title match, which would be against one of the four teams in the other bracket: St. Francis, Bucknell, Brown and Johns Hopkins.

The Tigers' first game of the weekend should not be too challenging for them. During their sole meeting last season, Princeton defeated Harvard by four goals. The Crimson have not started their season particularly well; they have a .500 record despite the fact that they have not faced the level of competition Princeton has during its season.

If the Tigers get to play Navy (8-4), it will be their first time facing the Midshipmen since they lost to the team in the title match of last year's Southern Championships by only two goals. The Orange and Black were 1-1 against Navy last year in regular season play.

On the other hand, if Princeton advances to the second round and plays Iona (2-6) instead of Navy, the Tigers will be in a much better position. Iona was Princeton's fourth game of the year and the Tigers had a decisive 17-7 victory.

Performing well at this tournament would add to the momentum the Tigers have built thus far, sending them into regular season play with confidence and with a few extra notches in the win column.

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The Tigers began this season with the Princeton Invitational at DeNunzio pool Sept. 9 and 10. At the invitational, Princeton won four of its five games. The next weekend, Princeton traveled to California.

There, the Tigers won an exhibition game at Santa Cruz, then traveled to Stanford where they went 2-2 at the Northern California Tournament against some of the best teams in the country.

Despite the uneven outcome of the tournament, the Tigers still enjoyed it as it taught them a lot about their level of skill.

"The guys felt good about their play last weekend and it taught us a lot about how we play and what we need to improve upon," Nicolao said, "specifically, our conditioning and defensive skills."

With the self-awareness earned in NorCal, brought to bear against the historically-weaker Eastern teams, Princeton should find itself in good shape this weekend.