Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
St. Francis
Players Mentioned
Princeton Advances to Eastern Title Game With Win Over St. Francis
November 11, 2006 | Men's Water Polo
PRINCETON -- Nicholas Seaver scored in the second overtime to lead the 15th-ranked Princeton men's water polo team to an 11-10 win over 10th-ranked and top-seeded St. Francis in the semifinal round of the 2006 Eastern Championships on Saturday night at DeNunzio Pool. Princeton advances to face 12th-ranked Navy tomorrow at 1:30 p.m., with an NCAA tournament berth on the line.
The game was a back-and-forth affair from the start. The game appeared to be one-sided in the early going as the Terriers built a 4-0 lead with 6:41 left in the second period as Milos Vuksic and Bogdan Petrovic scored even strength goals at at 4:44 and 3:32 of the first period before Botond Szalma put home a goal on an exclusion opportunity with five seconds left in the first period for a 3-0 lead through eight minutes of play. The lead grew to four 79 seconds into the second period as Petrovic buried a penalty shot.
However, the Tigers clawed their way back into the game as Seaver threaded a pass to Brendan Colgan who beat Terriers' goalie Dusko Radovanac over his right shoulder on an exclusion opportunity to trim the margin to 4-1 with 5:34 left in the first half. Seaver found the back of the net himself with 4:02 remaining by bouncing a shot off the water and into the cage to move to within 4-2. Beckman got into the act at 3:06 pumping his arm six times before ripping a shot into the upper left 90 of the cage to move to within 4-3 before Chris Kelsch whipped a shot across the goal mouth and inside the left post to knot the score at 4-4 with 2:28 left in the half.
St. Francis regained the lead at the 2:09 mark as Petrovic buried a penalty shot, but Princeton answered back 79 seconds later when Kelsch loosed a shot which deflected off the water in front of the cage and inside the left post with 50 seconds left in the first half for a 5-5 tie at halftime.
Revitalized, Princeton came out in the third period scoring back-to-back exclusion goals at 7:24 and 4:53 by Colgan and Beckmann, respectively, before Colgan added an even strength goal at 3:53 to go in front 8-5. St. Francis cut the lead back to a pair of goals with 2:46 left in the period as Petrovic scored on an exlcusion chance to cut the margin to 8-6.
The Terriers moved back to within a score with 5:40 left in regulation as Petrovic netted an even strength goal to open the fourth period. The Tigers responded as Seaver scpred at 5:10, but the Terriers answered when Vuksic beat Scott Syverson for a 9-8 Princeton lead with 3:40 on the clock.
Seaver scored again with 2:39 to play to give the Tigers a 10-8 lead, but St. Francis refused to roll over as Petrovic scored at 1:29 to move to within 10-9.
Regulation ended with a serious of events as the game clock shut down with five seconds remaining and Petrovic unleashed a desperation shot which eluded Syverson, was ruled to have broken the goal mouth before time expired, tied the score at 10-10 with one second remaining on the game clock and set up heroic performances by Radovanac and Syverson in overtime.
Following a scoreless first overtime period which saw Syverson and Radovanac both make two saves, the Tigers broke through with 59.74 seconds left on the clock as Vreeland passed from the right to the center to Beckman who fired a pass across his body to the arm of Seaver who put a shot over Radovanac's head for the eventual game-winner.
Syverson sealed the win for the Tigers as he stopped a shot with 20 seconds left on the clock which allowed Princeton to run out the clock and move into a title game showdown versus the winner of a semifinal game between Navy or Bucknell.
On Friday night three Tigers received all-league honors from the CWPA. Brendan Colgan earned first-team All-Southern honors, while Eric Vreeland and Nicholas Seaver were named to the second team.
Princeton improved to 18-7 with the two wins today. The Tigers advanced to the semifinals by topping Harvard 9-8 this morning. Princeton will face Navy tomorrow with a berth in the NCAA Final Four at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles on December 2-3 on the line.
| St. Francis | 3 2 1 4 0 0 - 10 |
| Princeton | 0 5 3 2 0 1 - 11 |
Princeton Goals: Seaver 5, Beckmann 2, Colgan 2, Kelsch 1
Princeton Saves: Syverson 14