Lewisburg, PA -
Terrier Water Polo Weekend Update
*written by Carl Quigley ('75)
Sept 18-19 @ Bucknell University's "Bison Invitational"
Many Water Polo teams walking away from a weekend's slate of games with a 3-1 record while out scoring their opponents 63-35 would be delighted; but this Terrier team has loftier goals, namely a Conference title. Despite the Terriers heading into the weekend with 7-2 record, they knew they needed to continue their momentum through the next 4 matches.
Here are the details from their 3-1 weekend in Lewisburg.
St. Francis College, 22 - Mount St. Mary University, 5
Game #1 vs Mount St. Mary's saw the Terriers face a new team to the CWPA conference, despite the Mount's familiarity with St. Francis College as a long time NEC rival in many other sports. The Terriers got off to a quick start finishing the 1st quarter with a 5-0 lead which they did not relinquish throughout the contest. The Terriers led the Mountaineers 11-5 at half and ended the game with a convincing 22-5 victory. 9 of 14 Terriers scored in the contest, with Adonis Vlassis leading the way with five tallies. Junior Aleksa Sisakovic led the team with four assists. Goalies Manuel Diez, Luka Bogdanov, Branislav Petrovic and Kenshiro Matsuzawa each played a quarter and all recorded at least one save.
St. Francis College, 20 – Salem University, 9
Game #2 vs Salem University: The Terriers repeated their start from earlier in the day and jumped out to an early lead concluding the first stanza with a commanding 5-0 advantage. As the game progressed the Terriers increased their dominance offensively and defensively. The SFC squad grew their lead to 10 by the end of the third quarter cruising to a 20-9 final. Leading the Terriers defensively in goal was Branislav Petrovic who recorded eight saves in three quarters of action. Offensively, the Terriers were led by Adonis Vlassis who tallied 4 goals. Aleksa Sisakovic and Paolo Morliere netted 3 goals apiece and Dominick Hevesi was the teams assist leader with four.
St. Francis College, 11 – Bucknell University, 12
Game #3 vs Bucknell: The Terriers third match saw them square up against host school and #14 ranked Bucknell. As in the previous days games, the Terriers took an early lead taking a two goal advantage into the second quarter (SFC, 4-BU, 2) and maintaining it through the halftime break (SFC, 6- BU, 4). The young squad from Brooklyn held on to that two goal advantage through the end of the third period leading the Bucknell Bison 10-8. As the match grew older the Terriers and the Bison continued to be evenly matched. Through the third and final quarters, Bucknell took advantage of 6 Terrier ejections and outscored SFC 4-1 eventually finishing the game with a 1 goal victory. Despite the outcome, the Terriers showed they have the ability to compete with the best teams in the conference, and nation. Baptiste Oliveri led the Terriers with 4 goals on 50% shooting. Paul Armingol added two goals and two steals. Defensively in goal Manuel Deiz blocked seven shots.
St. Francis College, 21 - Mercyhurst College, 7
Game #4 vs. Mercyhurst: Despite the disappointing loss to Bucknell earlier it the day the Terriers bounced back with a resounding performance over Mercyhurst College to end the tournament. In the Terriers final game of the invitational, they took an early lead and never looked back. The end of the first quarter saw the Terriers up 5-1 on the scoreboard and when the match concluded the final result was 21-7. Aleksa Siskovic led all Terrier scorers with 7 tallies followed by Paolo Morliere and Riyad Shehadeh with 5 each. Dominik Hevesi once again led the team in assists with 4. In goal for the Terriers Luka Bogdanov and Kenshiro Matsuzawa both split the game and played impresively in the cage.
The Terriers are preparing for their first home stand of the season when they host MIT (Saturday, October 2- 10am), Harvard (Saturday, October 2- 6pm) and Brown (Sunday, October 3- 11am).
