On Sunday, Nov. 24, the Augustana men’s water polo team defeated Penn State Behrend in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) East championship match 23-7. After that, the team faced the University of Redlands in the Division III National Tournament, where they fell 16-5. In the ensuing third-place game against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Vikings won by a score of 9-7.
This is the Vikings’ third consecutive year winning the East championship. The team’s ability to maintain the same level of success throughout the years highlights its strong work ethic and solid foundation.
“It solidifies what we’ve built very quickly here in these first four years as a program,” Coach Ryan Pryor said. “It shows the direction we’re going as a team in terms of continuing to get better and improving our position, both within our league and nationally, and so that’s exciting.”
Before the East championship, the Vikings had previously beaten Penn State Behrend in the past two matchups this year. While the Vikings knew they had beaten them in the past, players such as senior Henry Sothern also knew it was a new match, and the past scores did not matter.
“I think our mindsets shifted slightly in terms of not taking anything for granted,” Sothern said. “Especially this year, Penn State Behrend is a team who, if we weren’t playing well, they could probably beat us. It’s not necessarily a matter of us playing badly, but we must ensure our mindset stays the same.”
The Division III national tournament is not unfamiliar for the Vikings, who earned fourth place last year after falling to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the third-place game. The team hopes to compete well but does not want to get ahead of themselves early on in the tournament.
“I don’t have any expectations because I don’t want to overthink ahead,” junior Declan Hutton said. “I just want our team to use every touch of our ball to the best of our abilities in hopes that we could score goals and block shots. Coach [Pryor] doesn’t want us to think too far ahead, and that’s crucial for the National Championships because we only play two games, win or lose.”
The Vikings have faced the University of Redlands in the past, losing 13-6 last season in the Gary Troyer Tournament. While it has now been a whole year since the matchup, the Vikings hope to apply some key takeaways from the last meeting to the game on Saturday.
“One of the major differences in the game was we had some issues with turnovers and poor shot selection,” Pryor said. “One of the major messages throughout our season is that against national championship caliber opponents, those handfuls of mistakes here and there will almost always be punished with a goal, so eliminating those mental mistakes has been a major focus for us all year.”
So far, the team has done a better job this year with its shot selections. The Vikings’ shot percentage is .490 this year, compared to last year’s percentage of .385, and Pryor has seen a change in the team’s play.
With the Vikings’ season coming to a close, there’s more to the program than just winning the national tournament. Although only a handful of players from the roster will be traveling for the national tournament, it is important to understand that they have contributed a lot to the program, and their success would not have been possible without everyone contributing their all.
“The goal is to continue playing great water polo,” Hutton said. “We want to continue having good relationships in the pool and traveling with 16 guys from our 24-person roster. It’s important to us that the guys who aren’t traveling know that they played a crucial part in where we are in the season and that it doesn’t negatively affect them wanting to play water polo in the next season.”
In their first game against Redlands, the team struggled in the early periods, getting outscored 11-1 by their opponent. In the third period, Redlands continued to score and extended their lead to 14-2 heading into the last frame of the game. While Augustana outscored them in the final period, it was not enough, falling 16-5.
However, things looked better for the Vikings in the third-place game against MIT. Following back-and-forth goals from both teams, junior Mark Addison scored his third goal of the game, which moved the score to 9-7 in favor of the Vikings, which ended up being the final score.
The third-place finish marks the second straight year where the Vikings made the national tournament in the program’s four years of existence. Overall, the team finished the year 16-7 and a perfect 8-0 in conference play.
