Water Polo team plays to painful end

The water polo team departed late Friday night for the University of Akron with grim prospects. After extenuating circumstances resulted in three team members unable to play in the tournament, and one sporting a sprained ankle, Oberlin stood knowing they had to play three exhausting games against three very high-caliber teams with only one sub, an injured sophomore Jeff Glickman.

"We pretty much knew we were going to get our butts kicked," junior Rob Pinson said. "With so few people, we really had no chance because we would be so tired most of the time. We hoped to maybe take U-Akron, but they were the last game and we knew we would just be too tired after playing three games."

Ohio State University was Oberlin's first opponent and their team was prepared to offer a beating. After an early scuffle with sophomore Scott Remley that resulted in an OSU member's ejection from the game for fighting, Ohio State roared off to a 24-4 victory. This was in spite of fantastic play in the hole by sophomore Jeremy Steinhauer and first-year Alan Cox, who scored two and one goals respectively, helping make them the second and third leading scorers on the team. Glickman, sprained ankle and all, showed his talents early on with a blistering shot towards the goal moments before being crashed upon by three OSU defenders.

Oberlin assessed their playing between halves and games with upbeat attitude. "We need to shoot the ball, " junior and leading scorer Wayne Miller observed. "The reason we don't score is we don't get off shots. I would rather see us lose a ball on a shot than on a turn-over." Sure enough, during the third quarter of the OSU game, OC rocketed seven shots on goal to OSU's three, and scored three times. Throughout the tournament, Miller's six goals were a tremendous boost to a team clinging to the bottom rung.

The Navy team, a mere hour later, was unnerved early on. Late in the first quarter, with Navy up 5-0, Remley scooped up a perfect pass from sophomore Julie Chor moments after her amazing steal from the Navy captain and corked a two-point shot. This pulled Oberlin to within a respectable three towards the end of the first. Chor had a statistically quiet tournament, but provided several key passes, including the set-up for a breakaway goal against U-Akron scored by Miller.

Unfortunately, with 15 seconds left in the first quarter, Miller was ejected for fighting. After being held underwater for close to 12 seconds while being repeatedly kicked, Miller broke the hold of his defender and spun around on his way back to the surface. All the referee saw was a flurry of movement and Miller facing his defender with his arms up. Oberlin played the remainder of the game completely Ironman, earning great respect from all teams present.

Steinhauer, who had already played all of the OSU and Navy games without a rest, had an especially fantastic performance with six shots and two goals. Tragically, he had toe momentarily pulled from the pool with leg cramps with 2:11 remaining. Navy, in a great display of sportsmanship, donated one of their top players to Oberlin for the remaining minutes of the 18-4 loss.

U-Akron delivered more of the same, running up 12 unanswered fast break goals despite valient defensive play by keeper junior Nate Bonheimer, to win 18-3. In fact, Bonheimer played a fantastic game despite the constant peppering of shots, stopping close to 45 per game.

Pinson also played fantastically in goal, making a total of 15 saves whle allowing Bonheimer ample time to cork four s hots and draw six fouls in a cumulative 20 minutes of playing time throughout the course of the tournament. Again, Cox helped blaze the way for Oberlin, firing off four shots in the first quarter alone. He finished the game with another two goals and eleven shots total.

Glickman played well too, with consistent, accurate passing and a beautiful breakaway which resulted in a great shot that just missed by inches the right of the goal.

Overall, despite the scores, Oberlin was pleased with its tournament play. "I think we played really well," Bonheimer said.

Miller concurred, adding that "for a team with no subs, we looked and played great."

Remley said, "We were simply overwhelmed by their defense and our exhaustion, and weren't used to playing under those kind of pressure situations."