Brown University
MIT
Bears Defeat MIT, 7-6, at Men's Water Polo Eastern Championship
11/21/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Water Polo
Cambridge, MA- Goalie Kent Holland (Sr., Orinda,
Calif./Miramonte) made a tournament high 17 saves between the pipes
to earn Player of the Game honors and help his team rally back from
5-3 deficit entering the fourth quarter as the Bears tallied a 7-6
OT win in the second consolation game of the 2009 Men's Eastern
Championship. The win places Brown into the fifth place game on
Sunday against the Rams of Fordham University.
The game was a battle of the former coach of MIT versus the MIT
assistant coaching staff as current Brown head coach Felix Mercado
matched wits against Alex Feinstein, Ed Vilandie and the rest of
the Engineers' staff as MIT head coach Adam Foley was not on the
deck due to the impending arrival of a child.
Neither team gained commanding control of the contest for all 38
minutes of play as the two institutions were able to counter on
another's offensive success and defensive stops.
Brown jumped out to the early lead in the game as Northern Division
Player of the Year Svetozar Stefanovic (Fr., Belgrade,
Serbia/Russian Embassy) converted on a man-up chance at the 4:09
mark of the first quarter to stake the Bears to a 1-0 lead.
The advantage lasted 45 seconds into the second period when Devin
Lewis (Sr., San Francisco, Calif./California) deked his defender
and twisted a shot into the goal mesh on a man-up chance to knot
the game at 1-1 with 7:15 left to play in the first half. For MIT,
the goal ignited a mini-scoring run as Lewis rifled a five-meter
penalty shot past Holland at 4:12 before John Preis (Jr., Los
Angeles, Calif./Phillips Exeter) split the defense to unleash a
shot inside the Bears' five meter mark from the wing at
even-strength for a 3-1 lead.
Brown halved the deficit before halftime as Corey Schwartz (Jr.,
Los Angeles, Calif./Harvard-Westlake) bested MIT goalie Columbus
Leonard (So., San Francisco, Calif./St. Ignatius) with a rising
shot for an advantage goal at the 1:47 mark for a 3-2 Engineers
lead at the break.
For Brown, the deficit disappeared 2:12 into the third period as
Gordon Hood (Jr., Carlsbad, Calif./Carlsbad) scored on a man-up
chance, but the Engineers rebuilt their advantage prior to the end
of the period as Preis and Alex Mattfolk (Jr., Boca Raton, Fla./St.
Andrew's) lit up the scoreboard with natural goals at 5:31 and
3:49, respectively, to give MIT a 5-3 lead entering the final
climatic eight minutes of regulation play.
Stefanovic added another goal at 6:50 of the fourth period to move
the Bears to within a goal of tying the Engineers, but MIT regained
their two-goal lead less than two minutes later when Lewis wrapped
a shot around his defender and into the cage for a 6-4 lead with
4:52 left in regulation.
The advantage would not hold up, however, as Hood lofted an shot
into the goal at 4:15 with the teams at even strength to move Brown
to within 6-5.
With the clock ticking down and in need of another score to put the
game into overtime, the Bears drew a five-meter penalty with 23
seconds left on the clock which Stefanovic buried over the left
shoulder of Leonard to complete a hat-trick and send the game to
overtime.
In OT, both teams scoring attempts were snuffed out by the other
until Schwartz broke loose on a man-up opportunity to put the ball
home for a 7-6 lead with 32 seconds left in the first of two
three-minute overtime periods.
The goal would hold up due to a strong defensive presence by
Holland who turned away four shots in extra time to earn the
victory and move his team onto the fifth place game at 11:30 a.m.
on Sunday, November 22 against Fordham University in a rematch of
the Northern Division title game. Brown took the Northern Division
title against Fordham with an 8-7 victory marking the first time
the Bears won their division since 1993.
Overall, the MIT-Brown game lived up to its billing as the top two
goalies in the Northern Division according to the coaches' voting
for the All-Conference Team put on a show.
Overall, Leonard, who earned All-North Second Team honors, finished
with 10 saves to combine with First Team goalie Holland to turn
away 27 shots of 40 shots on goal. In addition, the cross-bar and
posts added 13 stops as the teams combined for 53+ shots on
cage.
For MIT, the loss drops the Engineers into a seventh place game
meeting versus Iona College at 10:00 a.m. on the 22nd. The game
will be a rematch of the Northern Division third place game from
two weeks ago, a game the Engineers captured 10-8.
--courtesy of the CWPA
