CMS Men's Water Polo Falls to Two Ranked Teams at Harvard Invitational

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The CMS men's water polo team dropped a pair of contests to nationally-ranked Ivy League teams on Saturday at the Harvard Invitational, falling 13-8 to No. 12 Brown and 14-9 to No. 13 Princeton.

With the losses, CMS now stands at 10-5 on the season, with all five losses coming to Division I teams currently ranked in the top 13 in the nation. The Stags have also fallen to No. 3 USC, No. 8 Pepperdine and No. 10 Harvard on the year. 

Both matches followed similar formulas as CMS fell behind by four at the half and was unable to bounce back. Against Brown, the Bears led 6-2 at the break before sophomore Nick Britt (pictured) and junior Ethan Lewis scored to close the deficit to 6-4 early in the third. After Brown scored the next two goals,  sophomore Christian Thornton found the net to close the deficit to 8-5, and then scored again to make the score 9-6. 

Britt scored two more goals in the fourth quarter to finish off a hat trick, the first of those tallies closing the Brown lead to 10-7, but that was as close as the Stags would come in the final frame. 

In the Princeton match, the Stags trailed 4-1 after the first quarter and 7-3 at the break. A Barron Banta goal in the final minute of the half brought CMS within 6-3, but Princeton answered to stretch the lead to four. The Tigers built a 10-3 lead early in the third, before the Stags staged a furious rally to close within 12-9 in the fourth on a Thornton goal (his third of the match) with 5:54 remaining. However, that turned out to be the final goal CMS would score, as Princeton tallied two more to take a 14-9 win. 

Thornton had a hat trick against Princeton to finish the day with five goals, while Robert Driscoll had two. 

CMS will be back in action tomorrow when it concludes play at the Harvard Invitational with a 9:30 a.m. match against Iona.