No. 18 Fordham University Summits Mount St. Mary’s University, 20-6, to Open 2021 Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference Championship

No. 18 Fordham University -vs.-Mount St. Mary’s University Scoresheet (2021 Mid Atlantic Water Polo Conference Championship – Game #1)

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Lucas Nieto Jasny (Fr., Barcelona, Spain/Col-legi Closa) put away four shots – including a man-up strike and a successful five-meter penalty shot – to garner Player of the Game accolades as the No. 18-ranked/top seed Rams of Fordham University reached the semifinals of the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) Championship at the United States Naval Academy’s Lejeune Hall with a 20-6 victory over No. 8 seed Mount St. Mary’s University.

The victory advances Fordham (24-6, 11-1 MAWPC-East) into a championship semifinal at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 20, where the Rams will seek to return to a league championship game for the first time since back-to-back appearances in 1973 and 1974 versus Yale University and Bucknell University, respectively.

Fordham’s semifinal opponent remains in question as the Rams will meet the victor of an opening round game pitting No. 4 seed Bucknell versus No. 5 seed Wagner College.  Mount St. Mary’s (7-22, 1-11 MAWPC-East) – which is competing in the program’s second varsity season and inaugural MAWPC Championship – will take on the fallen from the Bucknell-Wagner game at 1:30 p.m. on November 20 with a berth in the tournament’s Fifth Place game on the line.

Facing Mount St. Mary’s for the fourth time in 2021 following 21-8, 19-10 and 17-9 victories, Fordham wasted little time in staking the program’s claim to a semifinal berth.

Jacopo Parrella (Fr., Naples, Italy/Umberto I State Classical) lit the fuse on a first quarter scoring explosion for the Rams by bombing in a shot 26 seconds into the contest (7:34) to put Fordham in front to stay.

Jasny built the lead to 2-0 with 6:08 on the clock before Dimitris Koukias (Sr. Athens, Greece/Athens College) ticked off consecutive strikes at 5:33 and 4:42 to make it 4-0. Jasny broke home his team’s fifth tally of the opening frame at 1:34 by burying a man-up chance to make it 5-0 before Michael Lemishko (Fr., Wayne, Pa./Upper Merion) beat Rams’ netminder Thomas Lercari (Fr., Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif./Palos Verdes) with 44 seconds remaining to trim Mount St. Mary’s deficit to 5-1.

Kacper Cieplik (So., Beaconsfield, Quebec/John Abbott College) further cut into Fordham’s lead 12 seconds into the second quarter by swishing a shot at 7:48 as the Mountaineers’ continued the trek back into the contest.

George Papanikolaou (Fr., Athens, Greece/Costeas Geitonas) delivered a response at the 6:47 mark to reinflate the lead to four at 6-2, but Nicholas Wallace-Whitfield (Fr., Nassau, Bahamas/Queens College) stuffed in a power-play bid at 4:30 to keep Mount St. Mary’s in the game at 6-3.

Nacho Ariste (Jr., Madrid, Spain/Eurocolegio Casvi (Endicott College)) returned the Rams’ lead to four at 7-3 with 4:09, but Wallace-Whitfield flushed a counterpoint at 3:44 to keep Mount St. Mary’s on the doorstep of igniting a comeback in trailing 7-4 with an entire half left to play.

However, Jasny (1:15) and Papanikolaou (22 seconds, man-up) enlarged Fordham’s margin to five prior to the halftime horn as the duo dropped in strikes to make it 9-4 at the midway point.

The Rams kept their foot to the floor in the opening moments of the third quarter to surmount Mount St. Mary’s as Christos Loupakis (So., Athens, Greece/Costeas Geitonas) (7:41; 3:02, man-up), Jasny (6:05, penalty shot) and Parrella (4:15) rifled in four consecutive tallies to make it 13-4.

Jason O’Donnell (So., Beaconsfield, Quebec/John Abbott College) snapped the streak at 2:19 to move Mount St. Mary’s back to within eight at 13-5, but Koukias shook his defender to drive in his second goal of the game with two minutes on the clock to make it 14-5 after 24 minutes of action.

Fordham left little doubt about the contest’s outcome in the dawning moments of the fourth quarter as Ariste lined in a penalty shot at 7:33 before Skyler Knoflick (Jr., Walnut Creek, Calif./Northgate) and Quinn Wagner (Jr., Westport, Conn./Staples) dented the twine at 5:17 and 4:37, respectively, to widen the lead to 17-5.

O’Donnell again snuffed out a Fordham run by torquing in a shot at 4:15 to trim the Mountaineers’ deficit to 17-6, but Daniel Lynch (Jr., Indian Head Park, Ill./Fenwick) (3:53), Victor Schultz (Fr., Sunny Isles Beach, Fla./Mast) (2:43, man-up) and Mark Katsev (Fr., Brooklyn, N.Y./Leon M. Goldstein) (35 seconds) hammered home the final blows to allow the Rams to advance with a 20-6 victory.

For Fordham, Jasny led the four with four goals, while Koukias deposited three to earn a hat-trick.  Loupakis, Papanikolaou, Parrella and Ariste tacked on pairs with Schultz, Lynch, Katsev, Knoflick and Wagner chipped in solo markers.

O’Donnell keyed the Mountaineers’ attack with a pair of goals to accompany single markers by Lemishko. Horan, Cieplik and Wallace-Whitfield.

In cage, Thomas Lercari (Fr., Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif./Palos Verdes) earned the start and the win for the Rams with eight saves in 24 minutes of work before Aldo Ordonez (Jr., Austin, Texas/Liberal Arts & Science Academy) stopped one shot in the fourth quarter. Marko Kruka (Sr., Belgrade, Serbia/West Valley College) took the loss with 10 saves for Mount St. Mary’s.

The win guarantees Fordham will not finish lower than Fourth Place in the final MAWPC Championship standings. 

Historically, the Rams previously placed Fifth (2009 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)), Eighth (2010 at Bucknell), 11th (2013 at Brown University) and Ninth (2014 at Navy; 2015 at MIT) at the Eastern/Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Championship prior to Third (2016 at Bucknell) and Fourth (2017 at Navy; 2018 at Fordham; 2019 at Bucknell) at the MAWPC Championship since 1987.