The Cal Poly men’s water polo club team came up short Nov. 16 at the National Collegiate Club Water Polo Championships in Athens, Ohio.
The Mustangs took second place, losing to Michigan State 15-13 in the final game.
“We scored 13 goals and that should always be enough to win,” Mustangs junior driver Josh Mix said. “We just got some unlucky breaks and we just didn’t play defense as well as we should have.”
Last year, the Mustangs edged the Spartans for the title, 7-6 in overtime. This season, though, they fell 12-11 to Michigan State in September.
“We were struggling to keep up with them,” junior 2-meter Aaron Shilling said.
Cal Poly sophomore driver Brandon Ross scored a tournament-record eight goals in defeat.
“He was basically keeping us in the game,” added Shilling, who added two goals.
The Mustangs’ other scores came courtesy of senior 2-meters Daniel Harris and Kevin Heinichen, and freshman utility Jake Muir.
Junior goalkeeper Casey Ryan made six saves in the loss.
“We didn’t really adjust to their game play until it was kind of too late,” Mustangs senior driver Kurtis Wurster said. “They got a lot of lucky shots that went in that we couldn’t compensate for.”
Mix, Harris, Ross and Ryan all made the all-tournament team.
Cal Poly, which opened the tournament with a 13-7 win over Ohio on Nov. 14, before defeating Dartmouth 10-5 and Arizona State 8-3 Nov. 15, claimed the championship in 1999, 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2007.
“(Not winning it this year) kind of fired us up for next year,” Wurster said.