Bucknell University Overpowers Mount St. Mary’s University, 17-11, to Claim Spot in 2021 Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference Championship Fifth Place Game

Bucknell University-vs.-Mount St. Mary’s University Scoresheet (2021 Mid Atlantic Water Polo Conference Championship – Game #5)

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Hasan Mogultay (Fr., Istanbul, Turkey/Istek Acibadem Anatolian) scored four times and goalie Adrien Touzot (Jr., Beirut, Lebanon/Brummana) stopped 10 shots in three quarters of work to share Player of the Game accolades as Bucknell University exploited an 11-3 scoring advantage in the second and third quarters to overpower Mount St. Mary’s University, 17-11, to claim a spot in the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) Championship Fifth Place game.

Competing at the United States Naval Academy’s Lejeune Hall, the Bison (12-12, 6-6 MAWPC-East) earn a spot in the Fifth Place game on Sunday, November 21, at 10:30 a.m. versus the victor of a consolation game pitting Division III No. 5-ranked Johns Hopkins University and Gannon University.  The Bison downed the Blue Jays of Johns Hopkins by 18-9 and 16-8 scores during the regular season, and have not faced MAWPC-West Champion Gannon since a 17-8 victory in Annapolis during the Navy Open on September 8, 2013.

Mount St. Mary’s (7-23, 1011 MAWPC-East) – which is competing in the program’s inaugural MAWPC Championship – falls into the Seventh Place game and will take on the loser of the Johns Hopkins-Gannon consolation game at 9:00 a.m. on November 21.  The Mountaineers are the lone team to previously face Gannon this year as the Golden Knights picked up a 13-11 win on September 11 at home in the Hallman Aquatics Center in Erie, Pa.  Mount St. Mary’s went 1-1 against Johns Hopkins during the regular season with a 15-14 win and a 13-12 loss.

Bucknell – which previously placed First (2016, 2019, 2020/Winter 2021), Second (2018) and Third (2017) in the five previous MAWPC Championship tournaments – never trailed in climbing over the Mountaineers.

Josh Yardley (Sr., Sellersville, Pa./Pennridge) and Mogultay staked the Bison to a lead they never relinquished as the duo delivered strikes at 6:23 and 5:41 in the first quarter to a 2-0 margin.  Kiahi Horan (So., Papmoa, New Zealand/Tauranga Boys’ College/La Salle University) cut the deficit in half at 4:41, but Mogultay (4:23) and Ethan Jones (So., North Andover, Mass./Oaks Christian) (2:47, penalty shot) answered to build Bucknell’s lead to 4-2.

Jason O’Donnell (So., Beaconsfield, Quebec/John Abbott College) trimmed the spread to 4-2 with 1:15 on the clock, but the Bison regained a three-goal margin 21 seconds into the second quarter as Mogultay completed a hat-trick.

Eli Thalos (Sr., Salt Lake City, Utah/West/University of the Pacific) sliced the gap back to a pair at 5-3 with a tally at 7:16, but a strike by Shay Gillearn (Fr., Woodland Hills, Calif./Harvard-Westlake) at 5:27 following a minor act of misconduct versus Mountaineers’ goalie Marko Kruska (Sr., Belgrade, Serbia/West Valley College) at 5:34 allowed the Bison to begin pulling away.

A goal by Matt Ryckman (Fr., Caracas, Venezuela/Loomis Chaffee (Conn.)) at 3:36 followed by a second minor act of misconduct against Kruska preceded another marker by Yardley (2:22) and a successful five-meter penalty shot by Gillearn (22 seconds) to make it 9-3. 

The Mountaineers’ terminated Bucknell’s four-score outburst with a penalty shot by O’Donnell as time expired in the firs half to move Mount St. Mary’s back to within five at 9-4 through 16 minutes of action.

Bucknell locked up the win in the first three minutes of the third quarter as Jones buried even-strength (7:36) and penalty shot (6:56) scores before Jack Lewis (Sr., Wilton, Conn./Wilton) lined in a shot at 5:19 to expand the spread to 12-4.

Kacper Cieplik (So., Beaconsfield, Quebec/John Abbott College) brought an end to the run with a man-up score at 4:51, but Bucknell closed out the third quarter with natural markers by Mogultay (4:07), Yardley (3:27) and Walker Butler (So., Blue Bell, Pa./Germantown Academy) to acquire a 15-5 lead with eight minutes left to play in regulation.

Zach Fischer (Fr., Chicago, Ill./De La Salle Institute) (7:38, man-up) and Colby Paine (Jr., Larkspur, Calif./Saint Ignatius College Prep) (6:20, even-strength) exchanged goals for the Mountaineers and Bison to start the fourth quarter and set the scoreboard at 16-6 with slightly over six minutes to play in the fourth quarter.

The gap between the programs continued to fluctuate between 10 and nine goals as Nate Hopkins (Fr., Rockford, Mich./Rockford Senior) finished a man-up chance for the Mountaineers at 5:07 to make it 16-7, Doruk Ozar (So., Istanbul, Turkey/Private Sezin) answered for the Bison with a man-up strike at 4:46 to flip the scoreboard to 17-7.

Mount St. Mary’s trimmed the final margin of defeat down by six by the concluding horn as Jaden McNeal-Villafana (Fr. Chicago, Ill./Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center) and Hopkins dented the twine at 3:17 and 2:30, respectively, prior to Horan wrapping up a hat-trick with consecutive goals at 1:44 and 55 seconds for the 17-11 final score.

For Bucknell, Mogultay (four), Yardley (three) and Jones (three) all posted hat-tricks, while Gillearn chipped in a pair.  Lewis, Butler, Paine, Ozar and Ryckman each notched single goals in support of a combined 13 save effort by goalies Touzot and Jack Otto (Sr., Libertyville, Ill./Libertyville).

Horan (three), Hopkins (two) and O’Donnell (two) all posted multi-score games for Mount St. Mary’s with Thalos, Cieplik, McNeal-Villafana and Fischer flushing single heaves.  Kruska stopped four shots with seven goals against in 13:24 of playing time to take the loss, while Michael Lemishko (Fr., Wayne, Pa./Upper Merion) swatted away one shot with 10 goals against after coming off the bench in relief.