NEW LONDON, Conn. — Division III No. 9-ranked Washington & Jefferson College outlasted Division III No. 10 Macalester College, 7-5, in overtime in a Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Division III league game at Connecticut College’s Jane Cadwell Lott Natatorium which is certain to have ramifications on seeding for the league championship tournament.
The star of game was Macel Reising (Jr., Annapolis, Md./Broadneck) who flushed shots with 2:15 and 30 seconds remaining in the second overtime period for the difference to allow the Presidents to remain unblemished in league play and gain the early upperhand in acquiring the No. 1 seed for the upcoming CWPA Division III Championship on Saturday-Sunday, April 22-23, at Macalester’s Riley Pool.
Macalester struck first in the game as Cara Mullery (Fr., Palmetto Bay, Fla./MAST Academy) rifled in a shots with 6:43 on the first quarter clock to stake the Scots to a 1-0 margin. W&J fired back, however, as Liz Klock (Jr., New Lennox, Ill./Lincoln-Way Central) posted the equalizer at 4:11, but Lucille Moran (So., Ann Arbor, Mich./Huron) netted another go-ahead goal for Macalester at 2:49 to give her squad a narrow 2-1 lead through eight minutes of competition.
Brittany Patterson (Sr., North Wales, Pa./North Penn) erased the gap 1:23 into the second quarter to pull the Presidents even with the Scots at two-all. Moran struck again to five Macalester another one-goal lead in the back-and-forth contest with 4:31 left until halftime, but Patterson proved the equal of her counterpart from the North Star State by evening the damage at three-all with 4:09 on the clock.
Neither team was able to muster much offensively over the remainder of the second quarter as the teams went to their corners locked at three-all after 16 minutes.
Moran and Patterson continued their offensive tete-a-tete in the third quarter as Macalester’s star pushed her team back in front 4-3 at 3:12 and W&J’s weapon responded at 1:29 to both complete hat-tricks and make it four-all going into the fourth quarter.
Neither team was able to solve the others’ offense until the 3:53 mark as Moran slipped in a shot to give the Scots another one-goal lead at 5-4. Needing a score to potentially win in regulation or at least force overtime, Sarah Latzo (Sr., Erie, Pa./Vila Maria) delivered for Washington & Jefferson by putting away a strike with 25 seconds glowing on the clock to once again deadlock the squads at five-all and bring on a pair of three-minute OT frames.
Unlike the first, second, third and fourth quarters in which the teams combined for three, three, two and two goals, respectively, the first OT frame was deadly silent as neither Macalester nor W&J could step-up to take control of the game.
However, Reising proved decisive in the final three minutes to prevent sudden death and put her team in the enviable position of having a head-to-head win in the series between the Scots and the Presidents with the league championship tournament in Minnesota looming in the future.
For W&J, Patterson and Reising led the way with three and two goals, respectively, while Latzo and Klock each accounted for solo strikes.
Moran, who scored in each quarter of regulation, wrapped up the game with four goals with Mullery contributing the Scots’ other tally.
