PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Djordje Stolijkovic (Sr. Nis, Serbia/First Grammar School Stevan Sremac) stopped 10 shots and fellow Terriers’ netminder Manuel Diaz (Jr., Madrid, Spain/I.E.S. Ortega y Gasset) came off the bench to block down three scoring tries in two minutes of decisive fourth quarter action as No. 18-ranked St. Francis College Brooklyn took down No. 15 Harvard University, 13-8, in the second semifinal at the 2022 Northeast Water Polo Conference Championship.
Competing at Brown University’s Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center, the Terriers made Providence – known as “The Jewelry Capital of the World” – their doghouse as St. Francis College Brooklyn (21-9, 6-4 NWPC) sets up a title game showdown with No. 8/defending NWPC Champion Princeton University at 1:00 p.m. with the 2022 league crown on the line.
St. Francis Brooklyn – which suffered 18-9 and 15-11 setbacks against Harvard (20-9, 9-2 NWPC) during the regular season – will seek to collect the program’s first victory over Princeton in 2022 as the Tigers previously took down the Terriers 11-9 and 11-8 during the NWPC regular season.
The title game will likely be another close affair if recent and past championship history are an indication of the outcome.
The 2005, 2019, 2012 and 2013 Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Champion with runner-up marks in 1999, 2000, 2004 and 2007 before placing second to Princeton as last year’s NWPC in the Garden State (9-6 L), SFC’s modus operandi is nail-biting title berths. Historically, the 1999 (11-10 L vs. University of Massachusetts), 2000 (13-12 L OT SD vs. United States Naval Academy at Brown), 2004 (3-2 OT SD L vs. Princeton at Bucknell University), 2005 (10-9 W vs. Navy at Harvard), 2007 (11-7 L vs. Navy at Harvard), 2010 (8-4 W vs. Navy at Bucknell), 2013 (11-9 W vs. Princeton at Bucknell) and 2021 (9-6 L at Princeton) title games were all games that featured a final difference of four goals or less.
St. Francis Brooklyn – which holds prior Second (2021), Third (2018) and Fourth (2016, 2017, 2019) Place marks at the NWPC Championship – led for the vast majority of the contest against the Crimson as Adonis Vlassis (Jr., Athens, Greece/Lycee Francohellenique Euguene Delacroix) and Paul Armingol (Jr., Aix en Provence, France/Lycee Emile Zola) beat Harvard netminder Noah Hodge (Sr., San Juan Capistrano, Calif./Santa Margarita Catholic) at the 6:40 and 5:37 marks of the first quarter, respectively, to acquire a 2-0 lead.
A successful penalty shot by James Rozolis-Hill (Fr., Huntington Beach, Calif./Huntington Beach) at 4:59 trimmed the Terriers’ leash to once at 2-1, but Aleksa Sisakovic (Sr., Belgrade, Serbia/X Beogradska Gimnazjia “Mihailo Pupin”) delivered a response at 4:59 to return the spread to a pair at 3-1.
Harvard pulled even as Alexandru Bucur (Jr., Sierra Madre, Calif./Harvard-Westlake) and Rozolis-Hill put away shots at 2:13 and 45 seconds, but a man-up strike by Sisakovic with 28 seconds left on the clock allowed the Terriers to exit the opening eight minutes with a narrow 4-3 lead.
The margin grew to 5-3 56 seconds into the second quarter as Paolo Morliere (Jr., Marseille, France/Notre Dame de France Marseille) shook his defender and deposited a ball into the twine at 7:04. Once again, however, the Crimson came back as Mot Stothart (So., Barcelona, Spain/Harvard-Westlake) heaved in a natural goal at 6:46 prior to Alex Tsotadze (Sr., Menlo Park, Calif./Sacred Heart Preparatory) slipping in a penalty shot (4:05) and an even-strength opportunity (3:21) to grab a 6-5 lead.
Trailing for the first – and only – time in the game, the Terriers got off the chain to rattle off the next five goals.
Baptiste Oliveri (Sr., Marseille, France/Lycee du Rempart) turned the tables on the Crimson prior to the conclusion of the first half by connecting on penalty shot (2:57) and natural (1:19) opportunities to stake St. Francis Brooklyn to a 7-6 leading through 16 minutes of action.
The momentum shift continued into the third quarter as a penalty goal by Josep Jodra Munoz (So., San Andreau, Barcelona, Spain/Collegi Closa) at 5:52, a man-up score by Vlassis at 4:42 and an even-strength marker from Sisakovic at 2:20 pushed SFC ahead 10-6 before Rozolis-Hill terminated the run by converting a six-on-five bid with 24 seconds on the clock.
Leading 10-7 heading into the fourth quarter, St. Francis further padded its lead to 12-8 27 seconds into the frame as Vlassis completed a hat-trick with 7:33 to play.
Owen Hale (Jr., El Segundo, Calif./Loyola) trimmed Harvard’s deficit to three at 11-8 with 6:32 to set the stage for some Diaz’s heroics.
A minor act of misconduct on Stolijkovic followed by a misconduct for disrespect to Morliere took two pieces off the board for St. Francis Brooklyn.
Diaz came on for two minutes of action and stymied the Crimson with three saves to extinguish Harvard’s momentum.
Armingol (3:17) and Sisakovic (2:33) drove home the final coffin nails with back-to-back power-play goals to establish the 13-8 final score.
For the Terriers, Sisakovic finished with a game high four goals, while Vlassis (three), Oliveri (two) and Armingol (two) also netted multi-score contests. Morliere and Jodra Munoz both dented the twine once to help set-up another potential history making moment for their institution.
St. Francis has a chance to achieve a feat never accomplished on the East Coast with four head coaches winning championships in the span of 15 years if Duretic can lead the team to this year’s title.
The 2005 title belongs to Carl Quigley – who is serving as an assistant coach for the Terriers this weekend -, while the 2010 and 2012 crowns were claimed by Igor Samardzija. In 2013, Srdjan Mihaljevic took over for Samardzija and posted the Terriers’ most recent title and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship tournament berth.
In addition, New York City teams have combined to win six league championships in men’s water polo since records were first kept in 1972 .Queens College took home the 1997 and 2002 championships under Shelly Rothman (1997) and current Princeton assistant coach Derek Ellingson (2002) to accompany St. Francis Brooklyn’s four championship crowns.
The 2016, 2017 and 2019 NWPC Champion, Harvard received three goals from Rozolis-Hill along with solo strikes by Bucur, Tsotadze and Stothart to go along with 10 saves by Hodge.
Harvard will wrap-up its 2022 season on Sunday, November 20, at 11:00 a.m. against the host Brown Bears in the Third Place game. The Crimson knocked off the Bears by counts of 15-10 and 10-8 in their regular season league meetings.
In the history of the NWPC Championship, Harvard has previously placed First (2016, 2017, 2019), Second (2018) and Fourth (2021). Last year at Princeton, the team fell to St. Francis Brooklyn (11-10 L) in the semifinals and Brown (15-13 L) in the Third Place game – a mark the squad will seek to not repeat in 2022.
| 1st Q | 2nd Q | 3rd Q | 4th Q | – | FINAL | |
| No. 15 Harvard University |
3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | – | 8 |
| No. 18 St. Francis College Brooklyn | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | – | 13 |
| SFC Goals: | Aleksa Sisakovic (4); Adonis Vlassis (3); Baptiste Oliveri (2); Paul Armingol (2); Paolo Morliere; Josepb Jodra Munoz | |||||
| Harvard Goals: | James Rozolis-Hill (3); Alexandru Bucur; Alex Tsotadze; Mot Stothart | |||||
| SFC Assists: | Adonis Vlassis; Baptiste Oliveri; Jose Jodra Munoz | |||||
| Harvard Assists: | None | |||||
| Saves: | SFC – Djordje Stolijkovic (10, 30 minutes), Manuel Diaz (3, 2 minutes) ; Harvard – Noah Hodge (10) | |||||
| Exclusions: | SFC – 13 ; Harvard – 11 | |||||
| Advantage Opportunities: | SFC – 6-for-11 ; Harvard – 3-for-13 | |||||
| Sprints: | SFC – 2-for-4 (3rd, 4th) ; Harvard – 2-for-4 (1st, 2nd) | |||||
| Cards/Misconducts: | YC – Harvard (Head coach Ted Minnis, one second left in 3rd Q); YC – SFC (Head coach Ilija Duretic, 38 seconds left in 2nd Q); MD – SFC – Paolo Morliere (6:32 left in 4th Q) | |||||
| Officials: | Val Vasilchikov, Gabriel Maldonado | |||||
