Two years after leaving the Collegiate Water Polo Association’s National Collegiate Club Championship without a victory, the Columbia men’s water polo club returned to the tournament and secured the best national rank in team history.
The Light Blue went into the tournament ranked 15th after winning the New York division for the second time in four years. In 2006, the team returned to Columbia without winning a single game at the championships, but this year they recorded a victory in their final match.
The Lions arrived at the tournament site, Athens, Ohio, just seven hours before their first match began Friday morning as rain and snow turned the bus ride into a 12-hour journey.
Already tired from the long trip, Columbia’s first match was against Michigan State, seeded second in the tournament but first in the nation. Tournament rankings are based off of a team’s finish at the previous year’s championships.
The Spartans used two goals from player of the game Evan Perry to take a 5-0 lead in the first period and cruised from there to a 12-5 victory. They also went on to win the national championship.
In the Lions’ second game of the day, they faced another Ivy League club in the Quakers. Penn was coming off an overtime loss to the University of Oregon but had little trouble with Columbia. Penn shut Columbia out for the first three periods, building an 8-0 lead en route to an 11-3 win.
Saturday it was the Lions who jumped out to an early lead, holding a 4-0 advantage over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at the half. Tech would not stay quiet for much longer as sophomore Chris Bauerlein scored a goal 56 seconds into the second half. Columbia still held a 5-2 lead going into the final period but Tech scored twice off penalty shots and Bauerlein added another goal at the 4:12 mark to send the game into overtime.
Both teams were scoreless during the first three-minute overtime, but with 46 seconds left in the second extra period, senior Sam Scioscia scored the game-winning goal and the Lions added another insurance goal to take the 7-5 victory.
Freshman Daniel Kirel was named player of the game thanks to his three goals, and the win put the Lions in 13th place for the tournament, Columbia’s best national rank in history. This was also Columbia’s first win in this tournament.
The team was missing several of its players this weekend, including Nuno Oliveira, who scored the goal that secured Columbia’s spot at nationals.
Though the help of those players may have led to a better finish, coach Igor Samardzija still viewed the weekend as a success.
“This points to the true potential and talent available within the school,” Samardzija said. “We did this well without having any recruiting or marketing strategy in place.”
Samardzija gives most of the credit to the senior players, or the “4-year club”—Joe Matuk, Prospero Herrera, Musa Kurdi, and Alexi Shaw—for building and organizing the team.
The team is accepting new players as it goes into its off-season. The women’s water polo team starts its regular season in the spring.
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