The men’s water polo team started their season this past weekend. 

In their first game, the Bison took on CAL Lutheran, eventually falling to them 13-12. Both teams came ready to the challenge with energy and enthusiasm. The teams were on the offensive with 18 goals combined during the first half of play. Eight Ties in the first two periods, with CAL Lutheran taking the lead with a 10-8 before the break. The final two minutes gave the opposition a lead with two unanswered goals.

The teams were evenly matched, a back and forth challenge, until the final 25 seconds of the first half. The Bison were strengthened by four goals from sophomore Hasan Mogultay ’25 in the opening 16 minutes. 

In the contest until the end, CAL Lutheran came out ready to play for the second half, advancing the lead to 13-8 with 4:55 remaining in regulation play. The Orange and Blue struck back with four unanswered goals, one from Mogultay. The Bison weren’t able to find the tying goal in the closing seconds for a win.

Aleksa Stefanovic ’26 started his Bison career with three goals two of which were in the final run for the herd in the fourth quarter.  Mogultay scored a career best with six goals in the defeat. The Bison logged 11 saves with Adrien Touzot ’23 in the net and Walker Butler ’24, Jack Bruce ’25 and Matt Ryckman ’25 each found the cage once.

In their second game of the weekend, the Bison competed against Mt. San Antonio, defeating Mounties 18-7. Bison took control opening with seven goals. They continued to lead into the second half keeping the Mounties by a 10 goal gap throughout the game.

The second quarter was dominated for ten minutes by the Bison, with Mogultay scoring two goals, Stefanovic, Ryckman and Shay Gillearn ’25 adding to the game-opening 7-0 run. 

Nine different Bison scored in the victory, with Ryckman tying his career best with three goals. Stefanovic netted three times for the second straight game. Maxime Touzot ’26 scored his first career goal as a Bison, and Ian Shultz ’26 netted twice for his first career goals.   

The Bison were supposed to complete their weekends with games against Iona and Biola, but they had to forfeit the two games. Red cards were issued to the Orange and Blue coaching staff during the morning contest against Iona, and so the matches were abandoned.

“Unfortunately it didn’t go well,”  Mogultay said.

“We had some starters missing. Also, we realized that we need to improve our defense. We are working hard this week, and hopefully we will get better results in Princeton this weekend.” 

In the Princeton Invite this weekend, the Bison will compete against Princeton, St. Francis (Brooklyn), and CAL Lutheran.