WATER POLO CLUB ROUNDUP: Water Polo is off to Nationals

The 1995 Penn water polo season has not been about one outstanding player or a single memorable game. A strong work ethic, dedicated leaders and a winning attitude is what the water polo team stands for. This past weekend at the regional championships in West Chester, Pa., was no exception. The water polo team (12-0) had its third straight undefeated tournament, including a route of its nemesis, Maryland. Penn left for the regional tournament as the No. 1 seed out of a pool of nine teams. Penn dominated Virginia, Millersville and Georgetown before facing the Terrapins. The final game of Penn versus Maryland was a clash of the first and second seeds. "This was the game we had been gunning for the whole weekend" Penn co-captain John Dwight said. In the teams' first meeting of the year, it took a last-second goal by sophomore Ben Schnayerson to pull out the 12-11 win. This time Penn dominated Maryland from the start. Both captains felt the rematch in the regional finals showed how far the Quakers have come from the beginning of the season. "The whole team was really pumped up and from the start of the game we just blew them out," Dwight said. Within the first minute and a half, the mighty Penn offense had scored three times, resulting in Maryland calling a timeout. "When we came back out from the time out I could see they looked as if they didn't know what had hit them," co-captain Steve Fallon said. Both captains agreed the outstanding play of goalie Matt Santispirt was key in the victory over the Terrapins. "When they were getting shots off, Matt made some big saves," Dwight said. The Red and Blue can attribute its aggressive defensive play to teammates Grant Geisen and Alex Holsenbeck, who had the tough assignment of covering league MVP and leading scorer Lenny Phillips. In every game this season Phillips had scored at least six goals, but Sunday Penn allowed him only two. The first-place finish in West Chester, improved Penn's overall ranking to No. 4 heading into Nationals. The 12-team championship tournament will begin Friday in Buffalo, N.Y. The three teams ahead of Penn are Army, Dayton and Williams. The tournament has four brackets of three teams each. The other two teams in Penn's first bracket are Buffalo State and No. 5 Purdue. Penn will start off by playing Purdue, a team it has never before played or seen, Friday night. Dwight and Fallon believe that if everything goes well, Penn will take on defending national champion Army Saturday night in the semifinals. "At the beginning of the season, we couldn't have asked for a better spot for our team to be in," Fallon said.