On Sunday, Nov. 23, the men's water polo team ended its season with a fourth-place finish at the Eastern Division Championships and a No. 17 national ranking. The Bears kicked off their final tournament with a 12-6 win against Johns Hopkins, but fell to Princeton and St. Francis in their final two games of the season.
"The weekend started really nice, beating Johns Hopkins. We came out with a lot of fire," Mike Gartner '09 said. "We knew that that was a game we had lost for three straight years and we didn't want to do it again."
Against Johns Hopkins the Bears jumped out with the early lead, with goals from Nico Fort '09, Gartner, Gordon Hood '11 and Toby Espinosa '12. In the second quarter the teams traded goals, but Gartner, Zach Levko '10 and Hank Weintraub '09 kept Johns Hopkins at bay.
Grant LeBeau '09 led the team in the third quarter, scoring a natural goal and converting on a penalty shot. While the teams continued to trade goals in the fourth quarter, the Bears had sealed their lead, and swam away with the 12-6 victory.
"A big part of water polo is the team chemistry," Gartner said. "I think the Johns Hopkins game, we just knew where each other were. We had great chemistry and seniority."
Kent Holland '10 came up big in the cage with 15 saves, earning him the title of Player of the Game. Gartner and LeBeau also played big, scoring four and three goals for the Bears, respectively.
"We really played to the best of Brown's capacity in that game," Gartner said.
With a win under their belts, the Bears headed into game two to take on the No. 13 Princeton Tigers in the semifinal game. Princeton jumped out to an early lead, scoring two goals in the first five minutes of play. With less than three minutes remaining in the first quarter, Gartner put the Bears into the game with a goal, but Princeton answered right back, converting a penalty shot.
The Tigers strengthened their lead in the first half of the second quarter, bringing the score to 5-1, but Bruno kept fighting, closing the gap in points to two, with goals from Hood and Fort.
"I thought we were definitely in a position to come back and make a run of it," Hood said. "But we just couldn't put our shots away, I guess. To their credit, they played really well."
The teams continued to trade goals in the third period, and Brown entered the fourth and final quarter with some momentum as LeBeau converted a penalty shot in the first minute of play. But that was the closest the Bears would get to victory and in the end the Tigers got the best of the Bears, closing out the game with yet another five-goal advantage, with a score of 14-9.
"I think the Princeton game was a very winnable game," Hood said. "We're obviously disappointed that we lost it, they just played better than we did."
In their final game of the season, Brown faced off against St. Francis for the third-place title. Earlier this season, the Bears upset St. Francis with a hard-fought 9-8 victory, but fell to St. Francis, 15-5, in the Northern Division Championship. This time, St. Francis once again got the better of the Bears, holding them off for a 11-8 victory.
"St. Francis obviously plays really smart water polo. They're very talented," Hood said.
"They always seem to capitalize on our mistakes, and those mistakes get magnified and it's harder to come back."
Gartner scored another three goals in his final game, bringing his tournament total to nine goals and earning him the title of CWPA Northern Division Player of the Week.
"Our big goal was to win Easterns, but our other goal was to win that first game," Gartner said. "Overall it was a pretty rewarding season, beating Navy and St. Francis for the first time in a long time."
And while this team will suffer a great loss with the graduation of its four seniors, the men are optimistic about the future of Brown men's water polo.
"The program is on its way up," Gartner said. "And that's kind of what we came into Brown to do, to build the program."
