The men's water polo team traveled to great heights this weekend - literally and figuratively - as it took part in the East-West Invitational at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. Brown advanced to the championship game of the round-robin tournament after going 3-1 against the four other teams, but finished as runner-up after falling 10-6 to No. 9 Loyola-Marymount College. Co-captain Jay Fantone '06 and Stu Thompson '07 were named to the All-Tournament Team.
Brown's biggest win of the weekend came in its first game, a 7-4 upset of No. 18 Air Force in its home pool. The victory over the Falcons was Head Coach Jason Gall's first triumph over a ranked team since taking over at Brown last season, and the program's first since early in the 2003 season.
The Bears followed up their upset victory with a 6-5 win over Iona College, a team the Bears had previously beaten 9-3. The 2-0 start was an encouraging sign for a team that was coming off what Luke Samson '07 called "probably the worst polo of the whole season."
Even with Grant Lebeau '09 out for the tournament with an injury and Graeme Lee-Wingate '06 still bothered by a hyperextended elbow suffered last week against Harvard, Brown held its own. Fantone had 13 saves against Air Force, and Thompson began his campaign for the All-Tournament team with three goals over the two games.
Samson credited the Bears' success to an emphasis on returning to the basics of the game plan, something they had gotten away from in a 7-6 loss to Harvard last week.
"We just wanted to play as (a) team and not take ourselves out of the game by doing too much," Samson said. "We just wanted to play fundamental water polo. Against Harvard, we were trying to force things too much, to try to play polo that isn't really our style."
Brown began Sunday against Loyola-Marymount, the team it would later face in the title match. The Lions were a deceptive 5-7 entering the tournament, but were ranked so highly by virtue of the higher caliber of their opponents. Ten of the 12 matches Loyola-Marymount played prior to this weekend were against ranked opponents, including one against defending national champions University of California, Los Angeles.
Brown's first match against the Lions ended in a 10-6 defeat, the same score by which the Bears would later lose the championship game. After a 3-2 first-quarter score, Loyola-Marymount scored three unanswered goals to bring the tally to 6-2 at the halfway mark. Though the Bears would hang around for most of the second half, they never mounted enough of a rally and had trouble stopping the Lions' diverse scoring attack, as eight players scored goals for Loyola-Marymount. Mike Gart-ner '09 and Gerrit Adams '08 each scored two goals for Brown.
In their final round-robin game, the Bears defeated Occidental College 11-4 to advance to the championship match. Gartner and Thompson provided lots of scoring help, netting three and four goals, respectively. The Bears jumped out to a 4-0 lead after the first quarter and shut the Tigers down with solid second-half defense.
Brown was at a disadvantage for the tournament title game before it even began, as Loyola-Marymount had only played one game earlier in the day - against Brown - whereas Brown had been in two contests.
This was clearly not the only determining factor in Brown's second 10-6 loss of the day to the Lions. The Lions ruled the pool from start to finish. Loyola-Marymount went up 5-1 after a quarter and didn't look back, once again displaying a wide-ranging offensive attack with seven players scoring.
"The talent difference between us and them is pretty big," Samson said. "They have a guy who was a first-team All-American last year; they have 10 really, really good players."
Aside from the number of games, the altitude was a factor for the Bears, as the Air Force Academy is over 7,200 feet above sea level. Having two of the team's players either nursing an injury or out did not help matters.
"Just warming up in the pool, I could tell - you just find shortness of breath after pretty much doing nothing," Samson said. "One thing you want is a lot of subs, and we had two or three guys off the bench. It basically wasn't enough."
The team continues its season Saturday in Claremont, Calif., at the Claremont Convergence Tournament.
