#19 Brown Peaking Heading Into Postseason

Nov. 2, 2007

Providence, RI - Listen to any sports talk show, pregame show, postgame show or just talk with any avid sports fan around playoff time, and you will hear that teams always want to "peak for the playoffs." As trite as that may be, the 19th-ranked Brown men's water polo team appears to be doing just that in its first season under Head Coach Felix Mercado, having won eight of its last nine games to enter this weekend's Northern Division Championship with a 17-8 record, the most wins a Brown team has ever had entering Northerns.

In the past three weeks, the Bears have been on a roll. The streak began after a difficult schedule of games in California in which the Bears went 2-4, with all four losses coming to ranked opponents (#4 UCLA, #5 Pepperdine, #7 Long Beach State, and #20 Santa Clara). Three games against Northern Division opponents MIT, Fordham, and Iona proved to be just the medicine to get the team back on track, as Brown won the three games by a combined score of 41-19.

The following weekend at Navy proved to be the true breakout performance by the Bears. In one day on October 20th, Brown beat an opponent it had lost to previously (a 9-8 win over Johns Hopkins), easily defeated a foe it had had only beaten by two goals earlier in the year (a 10-3 win over George Washington), and upset a ranked team it had not defeated since 1998 (a 10-7 win over Princeton). The following day, Brown nearly upended host Navy, ranked #11 at the time but now #10, before finally losing on a last-second goal, 7-6.

Last week, the train kept rolling. The Bears finished their Northern Division slate with an 8-7 sudden-death win at Harvard, despite not having goalkeeper Kent Holland (Orinda, CA), which forced freshman Brandon Yoshimura (Haverford, PA) into the cage despite his lack of experience there. The following night Brown played in front of a home crowd for the first time all season, needing to overcome some early jitters to top Mercyhurst, 10-7.

Now, the Bears enter the postseason with their eyes on capturing their first Northern Division Championship since winning the tournament's first edition in 1993, and more importantly, securing a spot in next weekend's Eastern Championship. For the past two seasons, Brown has finished second to St. Francis, which enters the weekend ranked 11th in the country. Last year, the Terriers took a 22-6 win in the championship game, but this year they were only able to beat the Bears 14-12 at their home pool in Brooklyn Heights, N.Y.

Junior Mike Gartner (San Jose, CA) once again leads the Bears in scoring, as he is currently 18th in the country with 57 goals. His 72 ejections drawn in just 25 games are also the best on the squad by far. Junior Grant LeBeau (San Diego, CA) is second with 43 goals. LeBeau leads the team with 10 field blocks, is second with 25 assists, and is third with 19 blocks.

Senior co-captain Gerrit Adams (Winnetka, IL) continues to neutralize opposing two-meter forwards on defense, while adding 32 goals, third on the squad, and 29 ejections drawn, second on the team. Junior Hank Weintraub (Los Angeles, CA) has been the water polo version of a fantastic point guard, easily leading the Bears with 55 assists and 39 steals. He is also third on the team with 27 ejections drawn and fourth with 31 goals.

In the cage, Holland has been solid all season, lowering his goals-against average by nearly a goal from 8.65 in his rookie season to 7.74 this year. He has also posted a .512 save percentage, averaging eight saves a game.

Freshmen Gordon Hood (Carlsbad, CA) and Corey Schwartz (Los Angeles, CA) have come on strong as the year has progressed. Hood has been able to spell Adams at two-meter defense while averaging just under one goal per game (24 in 25 games). He is also second on the team with eight field blocks and third with 22 assists. Schwartz, the current CWPA Northern Division Player of the Week, has 22 goals. Both have been particularly strong against Northern Division opponents, as Hood has 13 goals and Schwartz 11, good for third and fifth on the team, respectively.

Junior Nico Fort (Miami, FL) has had another solid season, becoming the seventh Brown player with 20 goals and currently sitting at that total. He is the team's primary choice for the quarter-starting sprints. Yoshimura and sophomore Zach Levko (Wildwood, MO) have been solid off the bench, with senior co-captain Alex Robb (Winnetka, IL) and junior Jerry Wolf Duff-Sellers (Malibu, CA) also expected to see some time this weekend.

The tournament starts at 1 p.m. on Saturday, when the Bears play seventh seed Queens College in the first round. A win in that match would set up a possible rematch with Harvard, this time with Holland in the cage.