CLAREMONT, CA – The Johns Hopkins water polo team dropped both games on the opening day of the Gary Troyer Tournament. Hopkins lost to Whittier, 11-8, and then fell to La Verne, 15-12.
Whittier jumped out to a four-goal lead after one quarter. Sophomore
Ian Raley got the Blue Jays on the board just 66 seconds into the second, but the Poets answered with three straight to push their lead 7-1 at the half. Raley again opened the scoring, with a strike just 21 seconds into the third quarter to make it a 7-2 game. Again, Whittier answered, this time with back-to-back goals to extend the lead to seven at 9-2.
Senior
Kami Eslami scored with 5:16 to go and graduate student
Emerson Sullivan followed with a six-and-five goal and it was a 9-4 game heading into the fourth. Patrick Seelhorst scored for the Poets to open the fourth, but junior
Liam Housenbold and freshman
Daniel Palfi responded with a pair to cut the score to 10-6 with 1:56 on the clock. Kaan Hamurculu responded 31 seconds later to push the lead back to five. Palfi and Mihalopoulos would each score in the final minute, but Hopkins could get no closer than three.
Raley put Hopkins on top early against La Verne, but the Leopards responded with a 4-1 spurt to take 4-2 lead into the second. Sullivan and Eslami sandwiched a pair around a strike from Peter Trinh to pull within one at 5-4. La Verne pushed its lead back to three with back-to-back goals just 42 seconds apart. Sullivan and Eslami again bookended a Leopard goal and it was 9-6 with 3:18 to play in the quarter. Jaden Javier and Cody Lehotsky scored back-to-back goals and just like that, the lead was five at the 1:41-mark. Sullivan and Raley scored in the final 78 seconds to make it a 10-8 game at the half.
Housenbold and Sullivan scored in the opening four minutes of the third to tie the game at 10. The tie was short-lived however as the Leopards scored four unanswered to push out to a 14-10 lead with 5:13 to go. Palfi scored with 58 ticks on the clock to pull the Jays back within three, but Brandon Pham answered just 16 seconds later. Sullivan came right back for Hopkins, scoring his sixth of the night with 31 seconds to go, but that would do it for the scoring.
Inside the Box (Whittier):
Goals: Raley-2, Palfi-2, Mihalopoulos-1, Housenbold-1, Sullivan-1, Eslami-1
Assists: Lo-2, Brooke-1, Steffey-1, Mihalopoulos-1, Soares-1
Saves: Pearson-6
Inside the Box (La Verne):
Goals: Sullivan-6, Eslami-2, Raley-2, Housenbold-1, Palfi-1
Assists: Freese-4, Eslami-2, Soares-2, Brooke-1, Housenbold-1, Gensbigler-1, Mihalopoulos-1
Saves: Pearson-7
Notes: Emerson Sullivan needs just one more goal to become only the 12
th player in program history to score 200 career goals • He also notched his 250
th career point versus the Leopards • Sullivan moved into fourth place in program history in career blocks (39) •
Kami Eslami moved into 13
th place with 22 blocks •
Chris Freese now ranks 19
th in JHU history with 61 career assists
