Brown men’s water polo’s (15-4, 3-2 NWPC) hot streak came to a temporary halt against No. 6 Princeton (21-4 , 5-0 NWPC) and No. 18 Harvard (18-3, 4-1 NWPC) on Oct. 1 and 8, as the Bears dropped two games in a row. But since then, the Bears have rebounded, winning eight straight non conference games as they prepare to try and avenge their earlier conference losses against Ivy foes.
This weekend, the team traveled to California for a three-game road trip at the Julian Fraser Memorial Tournament. Bruno got off to a strong start against the United States Air Force Academy (16-10, 1-0 WCC) on Saturday, taking a 10-5 lead into the half and eventually winning 14-11. Brown continued their stellar play with a 12-9 win over California State University at Fullerton (16-12, 0-3 Big West) on Saturday, and followed up with an 18-15 win over Santa Clara University (10-11, 0-2 WCC) on Sunday.
A key to Bruno’s recent success has been center Ilias Stothart ’26, who scored 11 goals in the weekend’s games. In the fifth game of the Bears’ recent eight-game win streak on Oct. 15 at home against Occidental College (9-14, 3-2 SCIAC), Stothart put together an extraordinary performance, scoring 10 goals to break the program record of nine previously held by Kent Rapp ’80 and Steve Ennis ’86. Stothart started out strong against Occidental with six goals in the first two quarters, adding four more in the latter half to lead Brown to a 20-14 victory.
“A teammate’s observation that Occidental’s goalie was vulnerable over his head, paired with great passes from my teammates and some quick shooting, allowed me to get up to ten,” Stothart wrote in a message to The Herald. Reaching the program record is “something I’ve been wanting to do for a while,” he added.
“Ilias is one of the best centers in the country and arguably the best pure center in our conference. Teams are trying to double and sometimes triple team him,” Head Coach Felix Mercado wrote in a message to The Herald via Brown Athletics. “The most impressive thing about the last couple of weeks is that the team is getting better at getting him the ball in great positions to score. His presence also opens up a lot of great looks for our outside shooters.”
“It was very fun to watch and be a part of,” wrote Jaxson Tierney ’27, who recorded a season-best six-goal performance against Santa Clara this weekend, in an email to The Herald via Brown Athletics. “Having one of your teammates do so well in a game and feeding off of their energy is such a fun experience whenever someone is playing well, especially during our game against Occidental.”
For their outstanding individual efforts during Brown’s 4-0 weekend on Oct. 14-15, Stothart and Tierney — former high school teammates at Harvard Westlake — were named NWPC Player and Rookie of the Week respectively. With 70 and 45 total goals respectively, Stothart and Tierney have been the Bears’ top scorers this season. Gabe Chang ’25 has the third-most with 44.
“It was my first time getting player of the week, and I’m especially proud of it because (Jaxson) was selected as the Rookie of the Week at the same time,” Stothart wrote. “It felt good to … show our conference that Brown Water Polo doesn’t screw around.”
Brown’s contingent of first-years have provided stellar contributions to the team throughout the recent winning streak.
“Our first-years are a big part of our improvement this season,” wrote Mercado. Tierney, Máté Tymcyna ’27, Mac Berry ’27 and Goran Narancic ’27 “have had to pick up a lot of the slack as we battle through injuries on the team. While this is their first year playing NCAA water polo, (all four) have had success representing their countries in various age groups. Their impact on both the defensive and offensive ends have allowed us to compete.”
“We’ve seen a shift in mentality across the board this year, and a lot of it has to do with our freshmen,” Stothart wrote. “Their talent and passion threatened to kick everyone out of their starting spots, stirring competition that we just didn’t have last year.”
“With such a young team and some players at the beginning of pre-season not knowing the specific tactics and style of play we play with, we have been able to learn to play with (the rest of the team) quickly so that was not a barrier we ran into this season,” Tienrey wrote.
Sitting at 15-4, Bruno has already nearly matched its win total from last year’s 16-16 season record.
A large part of the positive environment surrounding the team comes from its “chemistry outside the pool,” wrote Tierney. He also cited communication as an integral part of the team’s success.
“The key to our recent momentum has been communicating more and becoming more comfortable playing with each other,” Tierney wrote.
“The key has been us building cohesiveness and our improved attention to detail,” Mercado wrote.
Brown will look to continue its hot streak as they reach a tough set of five consecutive conference games on their schedule, starting against Princeton at home in Providence on Oct. 28.
“Going into the next two weekends of games, keeping this up will be crucial, especially against teams like Harvard and Princeton, (in) which working together and communicating will be very important if we want to succeed,” Tierney wrote.
“We have a big mountain to climb with how good Princeton and Harvard are, (as well as) much-improved Iona (College), (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and (Long Island University) teams that all want to win and get into the Championship Game” wrote Mercado. “Regardless of how this season ends, I know we are building the right way and not skipping steps. This is a fun team to coach and watch grow.”
