From The Vault: St. Francis Scratches Out 12-11 Win over Cinderella Mercyhurst in 2012 Easterns

In 2012 the Mercyhurst Lakers, under the direction of Head Coach Curtis Robinette, pushed the Terriers of St. Francis Brooklyn—ranked #1 in the East—to the brink before succumbing by a score of 12-11. Video of this epic match is available from the CWPA here.
Many thanks to John D’Antonio, who co-wrote this report, which first appeared on the St. Francis Brooklyn website.

It was fairy tales gone wild on Saturday at the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Eastern Championship’s semifinals match between St. Francis College and Cinderella team Mercyhurst University. Ahead 9-5 late in the third quarter, the Mercyhurst Lakers looked to be on the verge of knocking off the top-seeded St. Francis Terriers. But with stunning swiftness St. Francis became the Big Bad Wolf, scoring seven of the match’s last nine goals to capture a 12-11 victory.

With the win, St. Francis punched its ticket to the CPWA finals on Sunday at 2:30 p.m., where the Terriers will face Bucknell University, a 7-6 victor over reigning Eastern champion Princeton  in the other semifinal match.

Perhaps underestimating an opponent they had trounced 14 – 6 earlier in the season, the Terriers waited until almost too late to make their run against a spirited Mercyhurst side. “We finally started executing our game plan in the fourth period,” said St. Francis head coach Igor Samardzjia, “and that’s why we won.” The Terriers rallied for the win on the strength of Vuk Vujosevic’s right arm and the superlative goalkeeping of Igor Mladenovic.

Nothing in the match came easy for St. Francis, which has the smallest roster of the eight teams at the Easterns. The Terriers went down a man early in the first quarter as center Marko Dzigurski was ejected from the game for misconduct. Coach Samardzjia said that “Dzigurski’s ejection affected our game by making our main center [Bosko Stankovic] play more minutes than usual.”

Dzigurski’s absence was most apparent in the Terriers’ disastrous third period, when the Lakers bombarded St. Francis goalie Mladenovic for six goals. With the Terriers trailing 10-8 at the end of three quarters, it appeared that time might have finally run out on their season.

At that moment, said Samardzjia, “The team was too nervous—it was hard to keep them calm.” 

But just as quickly as the clock turned to the fourth period, the Terriers turned the game around. The Terriers attack struck quickly, with a pivotal breakaway goal scored by Vujosevic early in the quarter, followed by a goal by Marko Gencic that knotted the match at 10. “Once they started coming back,” Samardzjia said, “they realized that we are in control and that things will fall out in our advantage.”

Late in the period, a brilliant save by Mladenovic on a Mercyhurst breakaway was followed by a backhand shot from Terriers’ center Bosko Stankovic that fooled Lakers goalie Matt Cote. The Terriers had their first lead of the match. A penalty shot by Gencic with a little over a minute left provided St. Francis with a two-goal lead. But Mercyhurst did not go quietly.

With less than a minute left in the game, the Laker’s James Owen cut the deficit to one. The St. Francis defense held up against a desperate Mercyhurst attack, with goalie Igor Mladenovic cradling the ball for the match’s last few seconds.

Marko Gencic led the Terriers in scoring with five goals, giving him a tournament high total of twelve. Vuk Vujosevic, named outstanding player of the match, contributed four goals.

Given the competitive heights that second-seed Mercyhurst reached this year, Lakers head coach Curtis Robinette expressed no bitterness after losing a closely contested match. and spoke humbly about his team’s success this year.

“At the beginning of the season I don’t think that we saw ourselves as making it to the semifinals of the Eastern championship,” he said. “Our goal was just to make it to Easterns. So we have to be happy playing in the third place game, something that I didn’t see us doing.”

St. Francis’ tenth consecutive win earns the team a spot in the CPWA Eastern championship game for the seventh time since 1999. The Terriers will be facing a Bucknell squad that has not won an Eastern championship since 1980. The winner advances to the 2012 NCAA Final Four water polo championship in Los Angeles on December 1.