The men’s water polo team heads north during break to take on MIT and No. 10 Harvard on Nov. 5 and also No. 10 Brown on November 6. All three schools are members of Princeton’s conference, the Northeast Water Polo Conference. The Tigers currently hold an impressive 4-1 record in league play, having lost only to Harvard by a single goal in early October. These games mark the end of regular season competition for the Princeton men; all following matches will be championship tournaments. Princeton currently sits at No. 13 in the nation according to the most recent Collegiate Water Polo Association poll, having fallen from a season’s best of ninth after a disappointing loss to Bucknell University last week.
A series of victories against Harvard and Brown particularly would increase Princeton’s ranking, perhaps allowing it to crack the top ten yet again. A motive for victory against Harvard may well be retribution. Over the past several years, neither the Tigers nor the Crimson has had a decisive upper hand in competition. Princeton lost to Harvard during the Ivy League Championships in 2015, but later beat the Bostonians on the way to a CWPA Championship title. This pattern of play has continued into 2016; Harvard defeated the Tigers on Oct. 2 by just one goal scored with a minute remaining on the clock. This season, the Brown squad was handily defeated 11-7 by Princeton on Oct. 1, but since then, the Brown Bears’ ranking has improved from 15th to 10th. Brown currently holds a 10-game winning streak; the team’s last loss was to Princeton. Though the Tigers have bested the Bears in the past, they should not overlook Brown’s recent successes. MIT is not ranked by the CWPA poll, so a win against it would not result in any real increase to Princeton’s ranking, but a loss almost certainly would greatly decrease Princeton’s standing.
The first of the Tiger’s two games in Cambridge, Mass., will be played against MIT. On Oct. 2 at DeNunzio Pool, the Princeton team conquered the Engineers 11-7. Sophomore driver Matt Payne even set a program-record eight assists during the contest. If the Tigers continue to play with the aggressive offensive tactics displayed in their last win against the Naval Academy, their prospects for the MIT game look excellent.
Far less certain, however, is the outcome of the game against No. 10 Harvard later that same day. The Crimson roster features attacker Joey Colton, who has won the NWPC Player of the Week award twice already this season, and goalie Antony Ridgley recently won the NWPC Defensive Player of the Week award for the second time. The showdown between Ridgley and Princeton junior goalie Vojislav Mitrovic, who was awarded Defensive Player of the Week in September, should be captivating. The Harvard match should be close and intense, with neither team displaying a clear-cut advantage over the other. If the Tigers can pull off a second victory, not only will vengeance be served to the Crimson, but their national ranking will likely also increase as well.
Following a busy day in Cambridge, Princeton heads to Providence for a match with No. 10 Brown. Though the Tigers dominated the Bears 11-7 earlier this season, Brown has steadily increased its CWPA ranking with a winning streak that has lasted for 10 games so far, including victories against several California teams, which always seem to top the charts each season. In addition, Brown also beat Harvard in September by a two-goal margin, signifying that the Tigers may have a much more difficult time defeating them this time around. Nevertheless, the versatility and depth that Princeton displayed in its last matchup with Brown predicts an even closer game than the Harvard match the day before.
