Dartmouth went into this weekend's New England Water Polo Association Championship with two goals in mind. First, the Big Green wanted revenge for last year's season ending loss to Williams. Second, they wanted a bid to this year's club national championships. The Big Green got both wishes. With three powerful wins, the team won the tournament and an invitation to the national championships as the third seed.
"I was particularly proud of the team's ability to maintain an intense level throughout all four quarters," Howard Silverman '97 said. "Often times we have more difficulty with teams early in the game while they are still fresh, but this weekend we were able to go out and quickly establish dominance."
The team opened the tournament against Bowdoin with a dominating 27-2 win.
In their next match against nationally ranked Coast Guard, the Big Green started slowly, building a 2-0 lead after the first quarter before extending the lead to 7-1 at the half. Coast Guard rallied back to 12-5 after the quarter before goalie Kevin O'Neill '97 held them scoreless during the last quarter. Brent Boehlert '98 led the team with six goals and Dave Martin '00 put in four goals.
In their final game, the Big Green battled Williams -- the team that ended the Big Green's season last year and prevented them from going to nationals.
"This weekend Williams was our toughest game," O'Neill said. "They always have a good team and the games between us are always close. They have a great two-meter hole set who really controls their offense and makes our defense adjust. We limited him to one goal today.
"Williams also has a knack of coming back and making the game close, as we had built a 6-1 lead, but they brought it right back to 6-5 at the beginning of the second quarter," O'Neill added.
But the Big Green quickly extended the lead to 10-5, ending William's surge. Although the team did not dominate the game as they had in the last two matches, Dartmouth was able to put Williams away 16-10. Jon Kenyon '97 led in scoring with six goals. Boehlert followed with five goals.
"Brent Boehlert and Jon Kenyon are at the heart of the Dartmouth water polo goal scoring machine," Nick Gansner '97 said. "They tear limbs from bodies."
Before traveling to Northwestern in two weeks for the National Club Tournament, the Big Green will compete in the Ivy League Championship this weekend at Brown where they will face three varsity programs as well as Columbia and Penn. Columbia and Penn also qualified for the National Club Tournament. Penn, like Dartmouth, is undefeated in their region.
"This weekend is a particularly challenging tournament for the Dartmouth team because the top teams in the Ivy League, Brown, Princeton and Harvard are varsity programs." Silverman said. "Last year we were able to challenge all three of those teams for much of the game, but had difficulty maintaining our play for full games.
"This year we hope perhaps to stun them a little bit. I wouldn't mind walking away with a victory against a varsity program," he added. "It would really show a lot for our program and how much it has grown in the past few years -- Pretty much from a non-existent to a very competent and successful team."
The Dartmouth B team also was in action this weekend. The Big Green traveled to Trinity University where they took on the University of Rhode Island, Wesleyan and Colby. The team dismantled URI 17-6, before falling to Wesleyan 11-8. But Dartmouth came back to win against Colby and earn third place in the tournament.
