Oct. 21, 2007
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The 11th-ranked Navy water polo team completed a grueling weekend, defeating three teams on Sunday en route to its second straight unbeaten Southern Division record. Navy topped Johns Hopkins (11-7), Harvard (7-5) and Brown (7-6) to run its record to 22-5, and complete a 7-0 mark over the last three days.
"Hats off to our guys for their performance this weekend," said Navy head coach Mike Schofield. "We showed some serious toughness and we were very overscheduled. To go undefeated this weekend is a true testament to the character of this team. We wanted to get them some work for Southerns in two weeks, and I think we did that. They responded very, very well."
In the first game, an 11-7 win over Johns Hopkins, Kevin Bell tallied a career-best four goals, while Aaron Recko, Mike Mulvey and Bram Arnold scored twice. Zack Anderson scored once. George Naughton stopped 11 shots in goal.
In the second game of the day, Navy rested most of its regulars in the 7-5 defeat of Harvard. Chuck Baker and Ian Hunter scored twice for the Mids, while Steve Craney made 12 saves in goal for Navy, which was tied with the Crimson at 5-5 heading into the fourth quarter.
Navy saves perhaps its most-remarkable comeback of the year for its final regular-season game, a 7-6 win over Brown. Navy trailed 6-4 with three minutes to play, but scored the game-tying goal with just 22 seconds left. After a Navy steal and subsequent timeout with just four seconds left, Schofield called for a play to Mulvey, who took a pass from Naughton and buried the shot at the buzzer to complete the comeback.
"A lot of credit goes to Mladen (Stanicic) and Tom (Popp). They developed some set plays in the last few weeks for those situations and the guys ran it extremely well," said Schofield. "It was a great comeback to cap off the weekend."
Mulvey led the way with four goals, while Recko had two and Baker had one. Naughton stopped 12 shots in goal.
Navy, winners of 12 in a row, will aim for its third straight Southern Division Tournament title in two weeks in Annapolis.
# GO NAVY #
