CMS Men's Water Polo Outlasts Johns Hopkins 14-11, Faces Whittier Tomorrow for Division III Championship

WHITTIER, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's water polo team used a balanced offense to open up a late lead and take a 14-11 win over Johns Hopkins in the USA Water Polo Division III National Championship semifinals on Saturday evening at the Slade Aquatic Center, setting up a rematch with host Whittier in tomorrow's national championship. 

CMS improves to 18-11 on the year with the victory, and avenges an earlier season 9-8 loss to Johns Hopkins on Oct. 4 on the first day of the Gary Troyer Memorial Tournament at Axelrood Pool. 

In the first meeting between the teams, neither team ever led by more than one goal before the Blue Jays prevailed 9-8. The same was holding true in the rematch until late in the third quarter, when a goal from sophomore Will Clark with 1:35 left gave CMS a 9-7 lead. After the Blue Jays answered 17 seconds later, junior Nick Britt scored with 26 seconds left in the third to give CMS a 10-8 lead heading in the fourth quarter. 



Johns Hopkins got back within 10-9 on its first possession of the fourth, but junior CJ Box scored off a feed from senior Zack Rossman and junior Christian Thornton capped off a hat trick with a goal with 5:14 to go to make it a 12-9 game. Olin Shipstead scored for Johns Hopkins to make it 12-10, but sophomore Eric Warmoth threw a cross-pool pass to first-year Kyle Ballack with 2:57 left to extend it to a three-goal margin. 

The Blue Jays scored out of a timeout with 2:05 showing on the clock to close the deficit to 13-11, and earned an exclusion with a chance to cut it even closer, but sophomore goalie Noah Smith came up with one of his 15 saves on the day to deny Johns Hopkins the chance to pull within one. With the Blue Jays pressing forward, sophomore Sam Harrison scored on a leakout with 16 seconds left to cap off the scoring and give CMS the 14-11 win. 

Having a multiple-goal lead down the stretch took some of the pressure off for Smith, but he says his mentality doesn't change.

"I always just keep going until the game's over," Smith said. "We've come back in games where we've scored six goals in a row. I've seen it happen so many times, so you can never really let your guard down, especially a fast team like Hopkins, you have to be careful. It was nice to get a little bit of a lead, though, I can't complain with that."

The Stags finished with 14 goals, but it took them a while to get the lid opened on the Johns Hopkins goal, as Box scored in front at the 3:52 mark of the first quarter to tie the score 1-1. Rossman answered a Hopkins goal to tie it 2-2 with 1:07 left in the first, but the Blue Jays were able to score with Smith out of the net serving an exclusion to take a 3-2 lead after the first frame. 

Junior Koss Klobucher opened the second quarter scoring to tie it, and Rossman gave CMS its first lead on a 5-meter shot, before the Blue Jays scored the next two goals to take the lead back at 5-4. Thornton capped off the first half scoring with a long shot from 10 meters out that skipped under the crossbar to leve the game at 5-5 going into halftime. 

Thornton led CMS with three goals, while Box, Rossman and Harrison each had two. Ballack, Britt, Klobucher, Clark and senior Ethan Lewis also had goals for the Stags, giving them nine different goal-scorers on the day. Emerson Sullivan led Johns Hopkins with three goals. 

Playing a Johns Hopkins team that they had lost to in the regular season helped the Stags focus on the semifinals, and not get caught looking ahead to a rematch with Whittier, according to Thornton. 

"I think that helped a lot," he said. "We lost to Pomona, came back and beat Pomona. We lost to Whittier the first time, came back and beat them. We're a resilient team. When we lost to La Verne earlier this year, that kind of set us back a little bit, and then we got right back on it. We have a massive chip on our shoulder, and we're looking forward to tomorrow."

CMS will be facing Whittier tomorrow for the fourth time this season, with the USA Water Polo Division III National Championship on the line. The home team has won the first three contests, with the Poets taking a 12-9 regular season win at home, the Stags winning 10-9 at Axelrood Pool, and Whittier winning the SCIAC Championship at the Slade Aquatic Center 13-12.