It’s been five years since Princeton’s last trip to the NCAA Championships, and that season was highlighted by a spectacular 13-game winning streak. Since 2006, the No. 17 men’s water polo team (12-11 overall) fell one win short of an Eastern Championship title twice, finishing second to Navy both times.
This year, with NCAAs taking place at DeNunzio Pool, Princeton will have added incentive to avenge those second-place finishes when it plays in this year’s Easterns, hosted by MIT this weekend.
Princeton, entering the tournament as the Southern Section’s second seed, will face Northern Section third seed MIT at 4 p.m. Friday evening.
The winner will face off against either Brown, the top seed in the Northern Section, or Bucknell, the Southern Section’s fourth seed.
Princeton’s season has had its ups and downs, but the weekend trio of games will undoubtedly prove the most challenging.
Princeton has gone 7-5 against the rest of the seven-team field, with its biggest win being a 7-3 defeat of No. 12 Navy midway through the season. The Midshipmen (20-8) will be the obstacle of the weekend by far, as they look to build on their nine-game winning streak.
The Tigers have gone 4-2 in their last six games, and the two losses came against the Midshipmen, with the more recent of the two being a 10-5 letdown at the Southern Championships two weeks ago.
“In Southern Championships, it was mistakes. We made a couple pretty big offensive mistakes that Navy capitalized on,” senior left attack Mark Zalewski said. “Navy is really good about waiting for a mistake and working together to make its opponents pay for that mistake, and this weekend we’re really trying to play error-free to not let them have an opportunity to pull ahead.”
The Tigers have been led all season by Zalewski, who has one of the top shooting percentages on the team, with 50 goals on 121 attempts this season.
The next top two scorers for the Orange and Black are senior attack Douglas Wigley and standout freshman attack Tim Wenzlau, with 27 and 22 goals, respectively.
Senior left attack Eric Vreeland has also been a constant threat, having posted 23 assists, 21 steals and 19 goals. Vreeland joins Zalewski and Wenzlau as the only players on the team with triple-doubles.
Junior netminder Mike Merlone has been strong all year between the pipes, posting 149 saves and a .534 save percentage.
To be successful over the weekend, Princeton will need to tighten up on defense. Its 10-5 loss to Navy in the Southern Championships was one of its most lopsided of the season, but at the same time, one of Princeton’s greatest wins this season was also against the Midshipmen.
“When we played Navy and defeated them, 7-3, everything clicked, and we couldn’t do no wrong, and we put all of our facets together,” Zalewski said. “If we can put everything together like we did that weekend, then we can certainly pull away with a win this weekend.”
Princeton has not faced MIT (8-14) this season, but both have faced George Washington and Brown. Both teams swept George Washington, but MIT fell to Brown three times this season while Princeton split its two games against the Bears.
The Tigers also faced MIT in the opening match of Easterns last year, and they barely escaped with a 15-13 victory. Zalewski and Vreeland both contributed three goals in the victory, and Merlone put up 11 saves in the win.
“We have to take care of business in our first game [against MIT]. We’ve played them in the first round the last two years, and we have to make sure not to overlook them,” Vreeland said. “We have to go into every game thinking it’s our last and not focusing too much on the games after that. We can’t think too far ahead, but focus on being patient and working on the tempo of the game, and if we do these things, it’s going to be our game to lose.”
The championship final will be held on Sunday, and the winner will go on to play in the NCAA Championships, beginning on Dec. 5 at DeNunzio Pool.
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