CMS Men's Water Polo Closes Out Rare Air Challenge with 15-6 Win Over Ottawa

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Sam Harrison and Andrew Wraith each had hat tricks as the CMS men's water polo team closed out the Rare Air Challenge at Air Force with a 15-6 win over Ottawa (Ariz.), ending its opening tournament with a 2-2 record.

CMS also took a 10-5 win over McKendree on Saturday, while dropping contests to Air Force on Saturday and Cal Lutheran in its first game on Sunday 15-6. 

Eight different players scored goals for the Stags in the Ottawa win. In addition to the hat tricks from Harrison and Wraith, Gavin Rosser and Auggie Aliaga each added multi-goal games with two goals apiece. Rob Driscoll, Kyle Ballack, Will Clark, Christian Thornton and Theodore Pasquesi each had a goal, while Noah Smith had a solid effort in goal with nine saves and seven steals. 

Clark and Harry Rinker each picked up two assists for CMS, which assisted on 11 of its 15 goals on the day. Harrison and Wraith each added one to go with their three-goal efforts. 

In the opening game of the day, six different players scored for the Stags, but nobody had more than one as Cal Lutheran took the 15-6 win. CMS took a 2-1 lead early on a goal from Clark, but the Kingsmen scored the next five to take a 6-2 lead, and then used a big third quarter to pull away.

Driscoll, Aliaga, Harrison, Ben Weldon, and Cristian Pang also had goals for CMS, while Nick Maramica had a team-high two assists.  

CMS returns to action next weekend when it hosts the Inland Empire Classic at Axelrood Pool, where it will face a daunting schedule of Concordia, Long Beach State, USC and UC Irvine to help it tune up for SCIAC play, which begins the following weekend.