The men's water polo team faced some of its toughest competition of the season this weekend. Poor second-half defense proved to be costly for the Bears in their two matches against ranked opponents as they dropped two of three matches at the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships in Princeton, N.J.
Facing No. 12 Navy in its first match, Brown was outscored 9-4 in the second half and lost 11-7. Bruno rebounded to decisively beat MIT 10-6 and secured itself a spot in the fifth-place match versus No. 19 Johns Hopkins University the following day. But against the Blue Jays Brown found itself on the short end of a back-and-forth 9-8 game after squandering a last-second scoring opportunity.
The first match against Navy was destined to be tough, as Brown had lost the previous weekend to No. 13 St. Francis College, a team one spot lower in the rankings than the Midshipmen. In the first half the Bears showed no signs of imbalance and went into intermission with a 3-2 lead thanks to some tight defense and goals from co-captain Andy Wiener '06, Hank Weintraub '09 and Grant LeBeau '09.
But the third quarter saw Brown's defense falter as Navy netted two quick goals to go up by one. The teams then traded scores for a bit - including a breakaway goal from Mike Gartner '09 and a score by Luke Samson '07 - until Navy scored two in a row to go up 7-5 at the start of the final quarter.
The scoring pace continued throughout the final 15 minutes, but Navy was able to increase its lead and eventually prevailed.
Offensively, Brown had a right to be satisfied with its seven goals, as Navy goalkeeper George Naughton recently took home Southern Division Player of the Week honors. Most notably, the younger players on Brown's squad continued to produce points, with three of the five first-years on the team scoring at least one goal. But the defense did not hold up for the Bears. Navy gained a 22-16 advantage over Brown in the all-time series.
Much of the reason for the second-half gap, according to Samson, was Navy's very deep and talented bench.
"They have so many subs that they can just throw in one line, and then after someone scores, throw in six fresh guys that are pretty much just as good as the starters, if not better," Samson said. "We just couldn't keep up with them speed-wise toward the end of the game. And if you make any mental errors against them, they capitalize on every single one."
Brown's next match against MIT was closer than its 11-4 win over the Beavers earlier this season, but Bruno still was able to assert its dominance despite playing a sloppy game overall. Brown took advantage when MIT turned the ball over several times during the match. Wiener led the team with four goals, and Graeme Lee-Wingate '06 had two goals to his name. Gartner netted three scores, and Weintraub had one. All 10 goals were scored either by seniors or first-years, a microcosmic reflection of the general trend of Bruno goal-scoring this season.
On Sunday, Brown faced Hopkins in the fifth-place game. As in the Navy match, the Bears played a strong first half, leading 4-1 after a quarter and 6-3 at halftime on goals from Gartner, Lee-Wingate, LeBeau, Wiener and Gerrit Adams '08. Unfortunately for Bruno, the similarities with the Navy game continued, as Brown dropped the ball in the third quarter and was outscored 4-0, leading to a one-goal deficit going into the fourth. Scoring in the final period was even - Brown saw goals from Weintraub and Stu Thompson '07, and the Bears came close to tying the game in its final possession.
Brown huddled up during a timeout and called a play that had been designed for such situations, but the execution was poor and the Bears didn't produce a shot on goal.
"With 15 seconds left, they got an offensive foul (called), so it was our ball and we called a timeout," Samson said. "We ran the play, but it didn't look anything like it did in practice."
The loss stung for the Bears, who felt that they could have, or perhaps should have, won the match.
"Against Hopkins, I don't know what our problem was, really," Samson said. "It just came down to who made fewer mistakes at the end of the game."
Brown's next match will be in the friendly confines of the Smith Swim Center, as Brown does battle with Harvard Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
