Men's Water Polo Falls In Three Tight Games

ERIE, Pa. – The Penn State Behrend men's water polo team dropped three close games this weekend falling to Gannon 17-12, Mercyhurst 9-7, and Monmouth 14-11.

The Lions battled Mercyhurst Saturday evening and they were backed by a loud and pumped up crowd showing support on senior night. Behrend fell behind early when the Lakers jumped to an early 2-0 lead in the first quarter.

A high-scoring second quarter was filled with back and forth goals by each team leading to a 6-2 lead for Mercyhurst half way through the quarter. Feeding off of the crowd's energy, the Lions went on a 5-1 run through the start of the fourth quarter to tie the game at seven.

Grant Garcia (Kingsburg, CA/Kingsburg) led the Behrend comeback with four goals and Andrew Lockwood (Orlando, FL/Lake Nona) was a wall in net stopping 14 Laker shots.

Mercyhurst tallied two more goals in the fourth to take a 9-7 advantage and were able to hold the lead to capture the win. Edwin Doo (Placentia, CA/Valencia), Victor Nguyen (San Jose, CA/Evergreen Valley), and Troy Valkusky (Drifton, PA/Hazleton) also tallied goals in Behrend's hard-fought effort.

Nguyen led the Lion's offense in their first game Saturday morning at Gannon scoring five goals. Garcia had four to aid in Behrend's 17-12 loss. Hasan Khan (Lake Zurich, IL/Stevenson) recorded three assists while Ty Elder (Brentwood, CA/Heritage) and Valkusky each added two.

The final game of the weekend was another hard-fought battle against Monmouth. A slow start hurt the Lions as the Fighting Scots were able to jump out to a 6-1 lead midway through the second quarter after Garcia scored the game's first goal to give Behrend the lead in the first.

In a 10-4 game in the beginning of the third, the Lion's against surged for another comeback. Garcia scored to cut the lead to five and Nguyen added the next three Behrend goals to go on a 4-0 run and cut Monmouth's lead to two.

The Lions battled to keep the game close, holding the Fighting Scot's lead to only three with just over four minutes to play. Behrend fired shots at the net, but were unable to score after hitting the post twice in the final two minutes.

The Lions are back in the pool next Saturday for the Division III Championships hosted by Connecticut College.