Water Polo falls to Navy, 17-10

Hoping to build off of their final home victory of the season from a weekend ago, the Hopkins Water Polo team closed out their season on Saturday with a 17-10 loss handed to them by the Navy Midshipmen. Despite besting the resilient Midshipmen in their home pool a weekend ago, the Jays took a tough loss to Navy to close out regular season play. The Jays finished the regular season with a 10-9 overall record along with a 4-4 record in the CWPA Southern Division, East Region. The division record puts them in a three-way tie for second in their league. After opening the beginning of the match with each team alternating a goal, Navy scored three unanswered goals, with the last one coming with just seven seconds left on the clock in the first period. The Jays quickly cut into the deficit when junior Langdon Froomer scored with a single second left to make it a 4-2 game after one quarter. The second quarter brought another run by the Midshipmen as they strung together four straight goals, which pushed their lead to 8-2. Sophomores Bret Pinsker and Matt Fraser were able to get a small run going for Hopkins, scoring a goal apiece to make it 8-4 with three minutes and 38 seconds remaining in the quarter. Navy silenced the Jays in the following minutes as they scored two goals of their own before the break. This run continued early into the second half as the Midshipmen opened up the third quarter with an additional two goals, giving the home team a 12-4 lead. The Jays answered with a stretch of three straight goals to shorten Navy’s lead to five with goals from Pinsker, Froomer and freshman Jono Gillette. Yet the run for Hopkins was short-lived as Navy had another pair of scores in the final minute of the third quarter. Going into the fourth quarter at 14-7, the Jays needed a big swing in momentum to keep them in the game. This, however, was not the case as Hopkins and Navy traded off for three goals apiece as the Midshipmen took the game by a final score of 17-10. The Jays, playing without both of their captains who were inactive for the game, were unable to match Navy. “I think that as a team, we lacked the presences of our captains who had to sit out the game. This really hurt our team play in the pool,” Fraser said, in regards to the overall effort of the team. “It was a hard fought game, but in the end, we made too many mistakes and never had the energy needed to beat a team like Navy.” Hopkins was led by Froomer, who had a hat trick to go with his four points and four ejections drawn. Fraser, Pinsker and junior Blake Range each scored a pair of goals while Junior Kevin Yee tallied two assists, two steals and three ejections drawn. Junior goaltender Erik Henrikson made three saves on top of his two steals in two quarters, while freshman John Wilson made nine saves and had one save in the other two quarters. Co-captain and senior Wes Hopkins, who was inactive for the match, believes that the team is still in a good position heading into the playoffs. “We’re coming up on the last two weekends of games which will ultimately decide the fate of the season, so this week it’s really about fine-tuning the strategy, staying focused and staying healthy,” Hopkins said. “If we can do that, we will have a real chance to make some noise come Southern Championships.” Hopkins will be back in action by the time the team competes in the CWPA Southern Division Championships Nov. 7-9 in Princeton, NJ. The Jays still have an excellent opportunity to make a splash in the playoffs despite the loss and will look to bounce back in Princeton this upcoming weekend.