Sept. 27, 2008
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The No. 14-ranked Navy water polo team split against a pair of CWPA Southern Division foes on Saturday, topping Bucknell, 7-6, in the opener, before falling to 20th-ranked Princeton, 7-3, in the nightcap. Navy is now 10-7 on the season, and 3-1 in the CWPA Southern Division.
The loss to Princeton snapped Navy's 25-game winning streak during the CWPA Southern Division regular-season.
"We have a lot of work to do with the whole program and need to get tougher in our workouts," said Navy head coach Mike Schofield. "We were lucky to beat Bucknell in the first game and certainly got it handed to us by Princeton tonight. We are expecting teams to just hand the game to us, and we need to learn that won't happen."
In the first game of the day, Navy overcame five different one-goal deficits, socirng the last two goals of the contest. Johnny Meiners tied the game at 6-6 with 1:50 left to play in the contest, and following a Navy steal, Michael Mulvey scored with just 1.7 seconds left in the contest to give Navy the 7-6 victory. Navy trailed 2-1 at halftime and 4-3 after three quarters, before outscoring the Bison, 4-2, in the final quarter.
Mulvey led the Mids with three goals. Kyle Wertz scored twice and Meiners and Marek Malik scored once each.
There were few bright spots in the second game against Princeton.
"Certainly all credit goes to Princeton. They came in here tough and ready to play and we just went through the motions," said Schofield.
Schofield gave much credit to goalie Brett Rajchel, who finished the contest with eight saves.
"He has been our most consistent player and deservedly so. He worked very hard in the offseason and I am proud of him," said Schofield.
The Mids will now be off for a week-and-a-half and will get some much needed practice time.
"We are just lacking a lot of the fire and heart and toughness that we need to be successful," said Schofield. "We will go back to the drawing board and work hard in practice to get better. We have a lot to time to work on a lot of things."
Navy will play at both Johns Hopkins and George Washington on Oct. 7.
# GO NAVY #
