ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Navy water polo team capped a strong first weekend of play with two victories on Sunday to give the Mids six wins at the two-day Navy Open. The Mids kicked off their two-game slate on Sunday with a 17-9 win over Cal Lutheran in the morning before collecting an 18-9 exhibition win over Mount San Antonio in the afternoon.

"We had a good weekend overall: an undefeated record and, for the most part, we played good water polo," said head coach Mladen Stanicic. "We had a few bouts of diminished focus and we need to clean that up, but each time we were able to bounce back and finish strong."

Navy 17 - Cal Lutheran 9

Navy's action on Sunday began with a wire-to-wire victory over Cal Lutheran by a score of 17-9. The Mids jumped out to an earlier 4-2 lead over the Kingsmen on the strength of first quarter goals by Robert Sutherland (Sr., Denton, Texas), Matt Skowronski (So., Oak Hill, Va.), Thomas Allen (Sr., Fresno, Calif.) and Carpenter Warrant (Sr., Baltimore, Md.).

A 6-0 unanswered goal burst in the second period helped Navy put distance between itself and its opponent going into halftime. David Huber (Jr., Fort Washington, Pa.) got the scoring going with a tally at 5:42 before Warren and Taylor Bernhardt (Fr., Annapolis, Md.) scored within 51 seconds of each other. Another Warren tally and back-to-back markers by Carl Dowzicky (Sr., Collegeville, Pa.) rounded out the scoring in the second.

A leading factor in Navy building its 10-2 advantage at the half was the effective play in goal by Beau Bayless (Sr., Carmel, Calif.), who stopped nine Cal Lutheran shots on the way to posting an 81.8% save percentage.

Over the final 16 minutes of play in the second half the action was even as both squads were able to tally seven goals. Seven different Mids scored during this span: Bernhardt, Dowzicky, Steven Emde (Sr., Ballwin, Mo.), Brendan Metcalf (Jr., Frisco, Texas), Sutherland and Warren.

Garrett Sabesky (Sr., Lakeside, Calif.) played the second in goal and made seven saves on 14 shots faced.

Navy 18 - Mount San Antonio 9

The Mids wrapped up their play at the Navy Open with an 18-9 victory over the Mounties of Mount San Antonio College.

When asked about individual performers on the weekend, Stanicic highlighted Robert Sutherland, Carl Dowzicky, Beau Bayless and freshman Taylor Bernhardt.

"Particularly encouraging were the efforts of our starting center, Robert Sutherland, and our center back, Carl Dowzicky. They were our stalwarts on both ends of the pool. Beau Bayless also had a very good tournament in the cage though our other goalies did a great job as well.

Team stats will show other good performances. Notably, Taylor Bernhardt booked major minutes and is contributing immediately as a freshman."

Navy will be in invitational action again next weekend with a three games in Lewisburg, Pa. as part of the Bucknell Invitational. On Saturday, Sept. 12, the Mids will play CWPA foes, Fordham and Brown before concluding play on Sunday with a morning matchup versus Penn State Behrend.

*NOTE: Navy's contests versus Connecticut College, Cerritos and Mount San Antonio will be recognized as exhibitions with victories and statistics not counting for purposes of the CWPA and NCAA.