Augustana men’s water polo team started the season at the Air Force Rare Air Invite at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, where the team lost its first three matches. After coming back to the Quad Cities and defeating McKendree, the men’s water polo went on the road again to Los Angeles, Calif., for the Gary Troyer Tournament, where the Vikings lost their first game.
Sitting with a 1-4 record, the team faced its worst start to a season since its inaugural season in 2021. Despite that, the team did not panic. Head Coach Ryan Pryor said he knew they could only get better.
“The biggest thing to our start was how tough the competition was,” Pryor said. “We played a few Division I teams in those first few games. We really challenged ourselves, but it was early in the season, so we were still learning our basic concepts and figuring out what lineups work best together. Once we started to get that stuff smoothed out, we really started to hit our stride.”
Suddenly, the Vikings caught fire and won 13 of their next 15 matches. This included winning the rest of their games in the Gary Troyer Tournament, going 2-2 in the McKendree Mini Invitational, sweeping the MPSF Weekend I in five games and winning their first three games of the MPSF Weekend II.
Despite the change in results, senior goalkeeper Declan Hutton said there was not a significant change in what the team did. Since the majority of their losses were in the first week, he said the players just needed time to mesh and play together.
“With time, you can accomplish anything, and the boys definitely showed that as a team,” Hutton said. “We became much fitter and a much more cohesive unit, as to be expected with more training time. Especially with our close-knit team, it only got better as time went on.”
While their last match was a 11-10 loss against Johns Hopkins, the team remained confident in its play heading into the tournament. They proved that they could compete with one of the better teams in their division, and players like junior Alden Brinkmeier know they have a good chance to beat them if they get another opportunity.
“When we lost to Hopkins in the regular season, there wasn’t really a single guy with their head down, because everybody’s ready for that next chance to play them,” Brinkmeier said. “That was the first time we’ve played them since our seniors were freshmen. Getting to play them and understanding their play style will help us go into this next weekend.”
In its first match of the tournament, the team teed off against Washington & Jefferson (W&J) College and won 21-4, the team’s third win against W&J this season. While the team had momentum heading into their next match against Stanford, the Division I Cardinal team was too much for the Division III Vikings, who lost 25-7.
With their backs against the wall and not being able to afford another loss, the Vikings took on Austin College in the semifinal round. In the match, seven different Vikings scored, leading to a 14-8 win. Augustana then faced Johns Hopkins in the MPSF East Championship, a rematch of the last regular-season match, seeking revenge.
Going into overtime tied 12-12 and after three scoreless overtime periods, the Vikings struck in the fourth overtime period when junior Rhys Lomax netted the division-winning goal. Before the fact, sophomore Cole Faux knew he would want to do it not only for the team but for the program as a whole. His experience on the team drove his passion to win it this season.
“It means a lot to the seniors, because, of course, that means they won four years, which is amazing,” Faux said. “I really wanted to do it for them. Of course, the coach wanted this too. It just proves a point that we are a good team and that we can achieve things.”
This MPSF East title is the program’s fourth consecutive division title in only five years and seals a bid to the Division III National Tournament, where they will take on the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 6.
