Men's Water Polo: Defense will anchor team in quest to continue season’s hot start

Last year, the men’s water polo team defeated then-No. 12 Navy in Cambridge, Mass. to clinch the Eastern Championships title. It was one of the high points of a 16-12 season that, despite numerous injuries, saw the Tigers win their first Eastern title since 2004 and earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament, where they finished third by toppling then-No. 6 Loyola Marymount.

That dream season, however, marked the end of an era, as the Tigers graduated eight seniors from the Class of 2010, including The Daily Princetonian’s male athlete of the year, attack Mark Zalewski, who led the team last season with a whopping 57 goals. The Tigers also lost attack Douglas Wigley, who was named the Eastern Tournament’s Most Valuable Player, attack Eric Vreeland, who graduated as Princeton’s all-time assists leader, and center defender David de L’Arbre, who had a 71 percent sprint winning percentage.

“It was of course exciting to do so well last year,” senior attack Pete Schulam said. “The seniors were very talented and definitely contributed to that. Now that we’ve graduated those guys, a lot of people in the league are counting us out. But we’ve got a lot of people stepping up into roles, and this [past] weekend showed that we aren’t as screwed as everyone made us out to be.”

Despite these losses, the water polo team welcomes 11 freshmen to the pool this fall, including goalie Ben Dearborn, who was named a third-team All-American and Cal-Hi Sports Scholar Athlete as a high school senior. Highly touted center Connor Still, as a first-team All-American after his high school team, won the Junior Olympics in 2008. They will join goalie Tyler Amina; center Ford Spencer; and attacks Kurt Buchbinder, A.J. Galainena, Nick Gilligan, Adam Lebovitz, Constantine Nakos, Matt Pugliese and Alex Rafter to make up a strong 2014 class.

“We’re a smart team this year,” Schulam said. “We’re not necessarily huge in terms of physical size, but we have a lot of really fast players and we work really well together.”

Veteran senior goalie Mike Merlone will return to the net, where he played 23 games last year and recorded a .532 save percentage. The Tigers will also look to sophomore attack Tim Wenzlau — who played in 27 games as a freshman and garnered 22 goals, 10 assists and 17 steals — to take on an added scoring role.

“We’re looking to Tim to step up as a big goal scorer,” Schulam said. “We lost a lot of great shooters and Tim has always been a great shooter. He was a freshman last year and we had so many seniors that could score the ball so I don’t think he had his chance to shine.”

“Now that there’s room opening up, he’s having a chance to show what he can do and everyone is pretty happy with it,” he added.

Head coach Luis Nicolao will bring back his expertise in his 13th year overseeing both the men’s and women’s water polo teams. Last year he coached the Tigers to a berth in the NCAA Tournament for the third time in Princeton history. The past two years, Nicolao has won back-to-back Eastern Coach of the Year Awards. Assistant Coach Derek Ellingson also returns for his seventh year working with both men’s and women’s squads.

The No. 17 Tigers (3-1 overall) have started strong this season, despite losing 11-5 to No. 14 Cal Baptist (6-1) in their Sept. 10 season opener. The Tigers avenged their loss with an 11-9 win over No. 13 Santa Clara (3-2), in which Wenzlau led the team with five goals, and a 9-5 win over Fordham (4-5). The next day, Wenzlau again scored five goals in a 14-9 win over Harvard before the Tigers ended the weekend with a 12-6 loss to New York Athletic Club in an exhibition game.

Princeton’s impressive opening weekend has inspired hope in the team’s potential this season.

“Offensively, our speed is going to come into play,” Schulam said. “We scored a lot of our goals off of transitions, counterattacks and six-on-fives. If we continue to work on our counterattacks and improve our effectiveness in six-on-six, we can definitely have a great season.”