Men’s Water Polo opened up against Mount St. Mary’s in the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference Tournament Thanksgiving week held at Kinney Natatorium. The Bison held onto the third seed title going into the tournament.
The Bison took control of the game right away, putting up a 10-3 run in the first half. Goals came from an array of different players at the start. Andu Vlasceanu ’24 and Jack Murad ’26 had back to back goals. On the defensive end, the Bison held Mount St. Mary’s to one goal for most of the first half.
Aleksa Stefanovic ’26 helped the Orange and Blue gain possession right away at the start of the second period. Seconds later Vlasceanu added his second goal and seconds after that Stefanovic scored, pushing the lead to 6-1.
At the start of the second half the mountaineers managed to score and edge their way towards closing the score gap. The Bison were quick to respond to this with Hasan Mogultay ’25 finding Sean Michael Tunnicliff ’27 who scored the next goal. They added two more goals this period coming from Mogultay and Walker Butler ’24.
In the final period of the match the Bison continued to dominate offensively. With around seven minutes on the clock, Jack Bruce ’25 passed across the pool to Gregory Alexander Nordheim ’27 who managed to find the back of the net to score his first of two goals. Following this Liam Stott ’24 scored off a pass from Ian Shultz ’26.
Vlasceanu led the team with six goals against Mount St. Mary’s. Nordheim, Shay Gillearn ’25, Stefanovic, and Tunnicliff each contributed two goals that night.
After defeating Mount St. Mary’s, the Bison advanced to the semifinals where they took on Navy. Despite their best efforts the Orange and Blue fell 9-10.
In the final match of the championship the Bison faced Wagner to fight for third place overall. Wagner established the first lead with two goals early in the first period. They held onto this lead well into the second period until Stefanovic scored and evened out the match at 4-4.
In the second half Wagner made sure to score first. However, Stefanovic and Shultz were quick to respond with a goal each, coming only 17 seconds apart, making the score 6-6. The Seahawks scored again but Stefanovic was able to tie the game only 12 seconds later. From then on the Bison continued with the lead.
Butler was able to break the Orange and Blue free from the 7-7 tie by scoring back to back goals. Stott added one more goal to cushion the lead with only four seconds left in the game.
Stefanovic led with four goals with Butler close behind with two.
The Bison closed off an impressive season with a nice win against Wagner to make their final 2023 season record 12-16 overall.
