BALTIMORE, MD – The Johns Hopkins water polo team dropped a pair of league contests Saturday on the final weekend of the year. Hopkins lost a heartbreaker, 14-13, to Mount St. Mary's and then lost to Navy, 19-14, in the nightcap.
 
Sophomores Gavin Brooke and Jason Mihalopoulos scored back-to-back goals to stake Hopkins to an early 2-0 lead over Mount St. Mary's. The visitors answered with a 5-0 run to grab a 5-2 lead with 3:27 to play in the first. Sophomore Dado Soares halted the run with a man-up goal at 3:00, followed by a strike from senior Paul Gensbigler and the Jays were within one with 2:01 to go. Nicholas Wallace-Whitfield had the final say of the quarter, scoring to put MSM up 6-4 after one.
 
Alexandros Bellesis and Aaron Tarr sandwiched goals around one from Soares and it was 8-5 Mount early in the second. Sophomore Daniel Palfi and senior Cameron Burns answered with back-to-back scores and the deficit was down to one. Mount St. Mary's came right back with a pair of goals to take a 10-7 lead into the half.
 
Hopkins erupted for a 5-1 third quarter, capped by a pair of goals from junior Ian Raley, to take a 12-11 lead heading into the fourth. Burns pushed the lead to two with an early goal in the fourth, but the Mount would outscore the Jays, 3-0 over the final six minutes to grab the win.
 
In the second game of the day, Navy jumped out to a 9-0 lead in the game's first nine minutes. Mihalopoulos got Hopkins on the board and sandwiched a pair of goals around one from Michael Heller midway through the second. Brooke then bookended a 3-1 run Blue Jay run as they pulled within six just 1:09 into the third.
 
A 2-1 spurt by the Mids pushed their lead to 13-6 with 3:53 to play in the third. But Hopkins wasn't going away. Two goals from freshman Owen Bartlett and another from Saores and just like that it was a four-goal game with 1:36 on the clock. Navy answered however with two goals in the final minute to take a 15-9 lead into the fourth.
 
The teams traded goals over the first five minutes and it was still a five-goal game. Goals from Alejandro Schmidt Corujo and William True pushed Navy's lead to 19-12 with 1:09 to play. Soares and freshman Max Blecher answered with a pair in the final 52 seconds to account for the 19-14 final.
 
Burns led the Blue Jays with three goals versus the Mount, with Soares, Raley and Bartlett adding two each. Mihalopoulos and Brooke each had a hat trick versus the Mids, while freshman Alec Baker handed out four assists. Brooke also tallied two assists to finish with five points.
 
Hopkins closes out the regular season on Sunday, November 5 versus Wagner.