Tough road trip ends with lone win

After a tough three days against some of the East Coast's most well-rounded teams, the men's water polo team came home Sunday night 1-4 on the weekend and with quite a bit to prove.

The Tigers (12-13 overall, 3-5 Collegiate Water Polo Association) opened their weekend matches Friday night in Baltimore, Md., against Johns Hopkins (10-10, 3-4). What might have been an even matchup between the two teams ultimately came down to experience — experience playing in the Blue Jays' shallow home pool, that is. Johns Hopkins lacks a standard-depth water polo pool, using instead a pool solely designed for swimming.

"We were playing shallow defense in a really small pool, and they were pressing us out on defense," freshman goalie Mike Merlone said. "They were really used to playing against teams in their pool."

When Princeton met Johns Hopkins back on Sept. 23, the teams played evenly until the finish, when the Blue Jays barely managed to pull ahead in the last few seconds to win 12-11. Friday night was a different story, however, as the Tigers crumbled in the second half after going into intermission with a one-goal lead.

The four points scored in the first two quarters would be Princeton's only points of the game, as the Tigers were shut out in the second half on their way to a 12-4 loss. The game was the lowest-scoring game of the season for Princeton and the only time the Tigers have been shut out for two quarters. Senior goalie Scott Syverson had 14 saves in the losing effort.

Princeton, which came into the weekend ranked No. 20 in the nation, didn't have an easy opportunity to turn things around Saturday afternoon, as it faced No. 11 conference rival Navy (22-5, 8-0). The Tigers played hard for the first 30 minutes of the Navy game, trailing the Midshipmen by just one goal at the half, 5-4. Princeton even managed to shut Navy out for an entire 15 minutes during the second quarter, but the Tiger defense could not hold the Midshipmen for long, as they unleashed a nine-point barrage during the second half to make the final score 14-8 in their favor. Navy is in the midst of a 12-game winning streak and wrapped up regular-season conference play with a perfect record.

Later Saturday evening, the Tigers suffered an even more disappointing defeat, falling to unranked Ivy League foe Brown (7-6). Two quarters into the game, Princeton was being throttled by its less-heralded opponent, 7-2.

"There was no talking during the game, and our offense was kind of dead during the first half," Merlone said. "We weren't communicating very well on defense or offense, and as a team in general."

The Tigers fought a long uphill battle during the last two quarters, but their five second-half goals weren't enough to even up the final score, which ended up 10-7 in the Bears' favor. It was only the fourth time in 14 meetings that the Tigers had lost to Brown.

Sophomore utility Gregor Horstmeyer led the team with three goals, followed by senior utility Zach Beckmann with two. Merlone posted eight saves.

After losing by eight points to Johns Hopkins, by six to Navy and by three to Brown, Princeton seemed to be slowly but surely closing the gap between its opponents over the course of the weekend. That trend continued on Sunday afternoon as Princeton fell behind early to No. 15 Air Force (10-12) and ultimately succumbed to a two-goal loss, 7-5.

Princeton's efforts were finally rewarded on Sunday when the Tigers faced George Washington University (8-15, 0-7). Princeton jumped to an early lead and fought back every Colonial attempt at a comeback, including a three-goal flurry in a span of two minutes during the last quarter. Holding their ground, the Tigers took the game 9-7 for their first win of the weekend.

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The game against the Colonials was the final contest of Princeton's disappointing conference season, coming 12 days before Southern Championships. Southerns will be followed by Easterns, with the two tournaments determining whether or not Princeton will have chance to compete at the NCAA championships in December.

"Southerns will be our real test," Merlone said, "and hopefully we'll be able to figure things out at practice and see what we need to work on in the next couple of weeks."

Fresh off the toughest weekend of their season, the Tigers will be motivated by the knowledge that they have never had more to prove.