Iona College Achieves Come From Behind 10-9 Overtime Victory Versus Division III No. 3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology to Earn Fifth Place at the Northeast Water Polo Conference Championship

by Daisy Costello Lake

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Player of the Game Zach Roper (Sr. Orland Park, Ill./Carl Sandburg) scored two goals for Iona College late in the third quarter to tie the game with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to force overtime where the Gaels were able to pull off a thrilling come-from-behind victory to claim Northeast Water Polo Conference Championship Fifth-Place game at Harvard University’s Blodgett Pool.

The Engineers controlled the flow of play through the majority of the first three quarters of regulation.

Freshman Christian Schillinger (Orinda, Calif./Miramonte) kicked off the game with a goal at the 7:04 mark. Schillinger and the Engineers then capitalized on a drawn exclusion by Iona senior Marc Stauble (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago), which led to the first of three Luka Knezevic (Jr. Zagreb, Croatia/10th Gymnasium of Zagreb) scores on the afternoon. Knezevic added another advantage goal with just over four minutes remaining in the quarter.

Roper jumpstarted the Iona offensive attack with his first goal nearly halfway through the first quarter. Roper would have the lone Iona goal until the 4:14 mark in the second quarter. Meanwhile, Knezevic netted a third first quarter score with under a minute remaining to make the score 4-1 in favor of the Engineers after one frame.

Despite his team being down by three after the opening quarter, sophomore goalie Jorge Andres Torres (Trujillo Alto, P.R./Colegio San Jose) turned away five shots in the first quarter to keep Iona alive in the match.

The second quarter was marked by stiff defense and penalties, as both the Gaels and the Engineers drew three exclusions in the frame. The lone goal of the second quarter came with 3:04 remaining on the clock as freshman Kevin Downey (Greenwich, Conn./Greenwich) got a shot past Torres to give the Engineers a 5-1 lead going into halftime.

Iona, unable to find an offensive rhythm through the first half, turned on the jets in the second half to mount a comeback against the Engineers. The Gaels and Engineers, who went scoreless through four minutes of the second half, exchanged goals in the fourth minute of the second half. Senior Matthew Rothman (Baltimore, Md./Calvert Hall College) found the back of the net with 4:14 remaining in the third quarter to bring the Gaels within three of the Engineers.

The Engineers responded under one minute later as freshman Evan Kim (Irvine, Calif./Arnold O. Beckman) posted his first goal of the game with 3:40 on the clock.

With the score standing at 6-2 in favor of the Engineers, the Gaels produced two more scores in the quarter thanks to a second Rothman goal and the first tally of the game for senior Jonathan Hulbert (Baltimore, Md./Mount Saint Joseph) with 1:42 remaining in the quarter. Myles Stapelberg (Fr. Monarch Beach, Calif./Mater Dei) provided the Engineers with two back-to-back scores to give MIT an 8-4 lead heading into the final frame.

Iona came out of the gate in the fourth quarter ready to mount a comeback, rattling off three unanswered points on scores from Dalton Hansten (Fr. Sonora, Calif./Sonora), Roper and Quinn Lloyd (So. Sinking Spring, Pa./Wilson) in the first three and a half minutes of the quarter before sophomore Clyde Huibregste (New York, N.Y./Bronx) put the Engineers up by two goals with 4:12 left on the clock.

With the game on the line, Roper pulled through for the Gaels in a critical moment of the game. With 1:19 left on the clock, Roper unloaded and nailed a shot that put the Gaels within one goal of tying the game with the Engineers, 9-8. Then, just seconds later, Roper stole the ball from the Engineers and swam the length of the pool to nail the game-tying shot with 46 seconds remaining in regulation.

Rothman sealed the victory for the Gaels with his second goal of the game with 27 seconds remaining in the first overtime period to put the game away. The Engineers, who led 8-4 entering the fourth quarter, could not find the back of the net in either overtime period, ultimately falling to the Gaels, 10-9.

This was the third meeting on the season between the Gaels and the Engineers. MIT downed Iona in their previous two meetings, with a 14-12 overtime victory on September 30 and a 8-5 victory on October 28.

Iona golkeeper Jorge Andres Torres turns away an MIT shot on goal

Iona #2 Matthew Rothman

Player of the Game Zach Roper gets a shot past MIT.