Oct. 9, 2016 PRINCETON, N.J. - The Navy water polo team fell on the road on Sunday in a non-conference match to the 13th-ranked Princeton Tigers by a score of 12-7. A slow start proved problematic for the Mids (6-10) as the Tigers (13-6) jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first quarter and a 9-4 advantage at halftime on their way to the victory in a matchup of former CWPA Southern Division rivals.
The quartet of David Huber (Sr., Fort Washington, Pa.), Jared Castillo (Jr., League City, Texas), J.B. Lee (Jr., Newport Coast, Cailf.) and Taylor Peterson (Sr., Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.) accounted for all of the Mids' offense versus the Tigers. Freshman goalkeeper Ronan Williams (Severna Park, Md.) kept Navy in the game with 14 saves.
The action in Princeton's DeNunzio Pool began with a heavy Tiger feel to it as the hosts scored four of the five goals that were recorded in the first period. After Huber netted the game's first goal on Navy's first possession 39 seconds in, Princeton scored the next four goals. The streak of unanswered goals continued into the second quarter when the Tigers scored a power play marker at 7:31. Down 5-1, Castillo got Navy back into the scoring column with his first goal of the game at the 6:15 mark of the second period. Three straight Princeton goals increased the home team's lead to 8-2 with 2:00 minutes left in the first half. The Mids scored two of the final three goals before halftime to make it 9-4 at the break. Huber and Castillo each found the back of the net for Navy over the final 1:45.
Defense took control of the second half of play as neither team was able to score more than two goals in any of the last two quarters. Princeton outscored Navy, 2-1 in the third, while the Mids flipped that output and posted two goals to one for the Tigers in the fourth. Peterson netted the lone Navy marker in the third before Lee and Huber beat Princeton's goalie Vojislav Mitrovic for individual scores in the fourth.
"This was a reverse script from yesterday's game. Today we started out a bit slow and were forced to play catch up for the final three quarters," remarked head coach Mladen Stanicic. "We had a strong defensive effort in the second half, but unfortunately it wasn't enough to overcome a top-15 Princeton team.
"After a long four-week run of competitions on every weekend we are looking forward to 10 days of training before heading out to California for our next games."
Navy will next be in action at Santa Clara's Bronco Rodeo on the weekend of October 22-23 in Northern California. Navy will face off with San Jose State and Cal Baptist on Saturday before taking on Air Force and Santa Clara on Sunday.
