Bears Narrowly Miss Upset of #13 St. Francis, Easily Defeat Queens

Sept. 16, 2007

Brooklyn Heights/Flushing, NY - A third-quarter rally pulled the Brown men's water polo team (3-1, 1-1 CWPA North) into a 10-10 tie with #13 St. Francis on Saturday. However, after the teams exchanged scores, the Terriers pulled away to take a 14-12 victory and halt the Bears' upset bid. Later in the day, Bruno coasted to an 18-7 victory over Queens College.

The Bears are used to playing St. Francis tough, as his game marked the fourth time in the last three seasons they came within three goals of toppling their CWPA Northern Division nemesis. Brown fell behind 9-6 at the half. However, Bruno got back into it with a 4-1 run to tie the game, with St. Francis scoring before the end of the third to take an 11-10 lead into the final quarter. Junior Hank Weintraub (Los Angeles, CA) scored with 6:58 left to tie things back up at 11-11. St. Francis scored twice before junior Grant LeBeau (San Diego, CA) pulled the Bears within one with 1:32 remaining, but Terriers senior Botand Szalma, who had a game-high five goals, scored with 17 seconds left for the final 14-12 tally.

LeBeau led the Bears with four goals, with freshman Corey Schwartz (Los Angeles, CA) chipping in with two. Senior co-captain Gerrit Adams (Winnetka, IL), juniors Nico Fort (Miami, FL) and Mike Gartner (San Jose, CA), sophomore Zach Levko (Wildwood, MO), and freshman Gordon Hood (Carlsbad, CA) all joined Weintraub in scoring one goal. Sophomore goalkeeper Kent Holland (Orinda, CA) stopped eight shots in the loss.

Brown recovered from the narrow loss quickly, easily topping Queens. Gartner led the way with five goals, while Weintraub scored three times. Senior co-captain Alex Robb (Winnetka, IL) joined Adams and freshman Brandon Yoshimura (Haverford, PA) with two goals, and LeBeau, Levko, Hood, and freshman Kevin White (Davis, CA) each had one goal apiece. Holland made five stops to help the Bears even their Northern Division record.

Next weekend, the Bears will play a pair of games at Connecticut College, as they face Penn State-Behrend and Iona, with the latter not counting towards the CWPA Northern Division standings.