Men's Water Polo: Tigers remain unbeaten with weekend sweep

While the majority of Princeton students were jamming to Far East Movement, White Panda and The MashMaticians, the No. 14 men’s water polo team took to the road, traveling to Annapolis, Md., to compete against Iona, Connecticut College and Fordham. After opening their season with five consecutive wins at home, one of which was their opponent again this past weekend, the Tigers throttled their competition and jumped to 8-0 early in the season.

“We want to use these first few weekends before we start league games to simply improve every time we suit up,” senior co-captain and center Mike Helou said. “We have an incredibly deep team this year and a real chance to get back to the Final Four. To do this, we need to focus on the negatives from each game and work to iron those out so that we can be ready to go once league play starts up.”

On Saturday, the Tigers opened the North-South Tournament with a 15-4 win over Iona. Junior attack Tommy Donahue scored an impressive four goals to lead his team to victory. Though Princeton and Iona remained tied in the first quarter with two goals apiece, the Tigers pulled away with seven goals in the second quarter. Sophomore goalie Tyler Amina and sophomore left attack Nick Gilligan kept Iona scoreless for the entire second half.

A few hours later, the Tigers returned to the pool to play against Connecticut College. From the first quarter, the team showed its teamwork and strength, and topped Conn. College 16-3. Donahue and sophomore attacks Matt Pugliese and Constantine Nakos each had two goals apiece, while 10 other Tigers contributed single goals.

Following Saturday’s double victories, Princeton faced Fordham for the second time this season. Last weekend at home, the Tigers topped Fordham 14-6, and they were eager for the opportunity to do it again. Similar to the Conn. College match, Princeton jumped out to a big lead in the first half, outscoring Fordham by five goals.

Helou led the offense with three goals, while Donahue, freshman attack Drew Hoffenberg and freshman center Matt Weber contributed two goals apiece.

With the team now at 8-0, the Tigers said they are working hard to stay levelheaded and not become overconfident about the future.

“We were really excited by last weekend’s results, but it only showed us how far we have to go,” Helou said. “Many of the teams we’re competing against had the luxury of playing together all summer. We’ve been practicing for just over a month, so we’re still working on getting everybody on the same page. We can’t start slacking off just because of a few wins at the start of the year.”

Head coach Luis Nicolao shared the same concerns about his team.

“We just need to keep working hard. The next two weeks include some really important games for us. Anything can happen throughout the course of a season. This weekend is our first of league games so our goal is to play well this weekend and see what happens.”

The Tigers will face off against conference foes Johns Hopkins, No. 15 Navy and George Washington this weekend.