CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — No. 19/Division III No. 1-ranked Pomona-Pitzer Colleges held off host/Division III No. 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center Pool down the stretch to claim an 8-7 win in a clash of the two top-ranked small college teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
In a back-and-forth battle that saw the score tied five different times, Pomona-Pitzer rallied back in the closing minutes of the game to capture the win.
With eight seconds left in the third quarter, MIT sophomore Clyde Huibregtse (New York, N.Y.) gave the Engineers a 6-5 lead, but in the fourth Pomona came back and went on a 3-0 run to put the game away. With 7:10 to play Adam Ward tied the game at 6-6 and then Joseph Schafer gave the visitors a 7-6 lead on a man-up goal less than a minute later.
With 4:26 to play, Pomona’s Noah Sasaki scored the team’s eighth goal, which proved to be the difference as MIT could not come back from two down with just minutes left on the clock.
Huibregtse was able to score his fourth goal of the game with 1:08 to play in order to cut the deficit to one, 8-7, but the Sagehens’ defense held on the rest of the way to secure the road win.
On top of Huibregtse’s four goal, MIT also got points via Luka Knezevic (Zagreb, Croatia), Kyle Archer (Clovis, Calif.) and Pat Stefanou (Old Greenwich, Conn.).
Defensively, Hayden Niederreiter (Visalia, Calif.) made 11 saves in a complete game effort, while freshman Christian Schillinger (Orinda, Calif.) registered two steals and drew a team-high two ejections.
The Engineers were able to secure all four sprint wins which included two victories from Knezevic, one from Stefanou and another by Evan Kim (Irvine, Calif.).
Release courtesy Massachusetts Institute of Technology Athletics Communications
