7/29/2001 - Men's Water Polo
Navy Aquatic Club A Falls to Newport in Fifth Place Game; New York Aquatic Club A Wins Championship

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ANNAPOLIS, Md.-The Navy Aquatic Club A team fell to Newport Club, 7-6, in the fifth place game of the U.S. Men's National Water Polo Tournament at the Naval Academy. Newport Club is made up of players from national power UC-Irvine.

"I thought we worked hard, hustled and got good goaltending," said Navy head coach Mike Schofield. We just made two mistakes of the major variety to there one. It is not acceptable, but understandable, because they play against this type of competition 11 months out of the year. If the game goes two minutes longer, we might have been able to pull it out because we got the best of them in the second half."

Navy was down, 4-1, at the half before rallying to within one goal on two separate occasions. After Newport scored to open the third period to make it 5-1, Navy assistant coach Carl Sayler got things going for Navy with a goal to cut the lead back to three. Sean Foster scored for Navy to make it 5-3 and a Joe Donahue goal made the score 6-4 after three quarters. The Mids nearly made it 6-5, but Sean Foster's goal came just after the buzzer to end the third period.

In the fourth, Donahue scored his second goal of the game to make it 6-5 and then, after Newport scored to make it 7-5, Sean Foster scored with two minutes remaining to make it 7-6. Foster had a goal disallowed in the final seconds on an illegal shot attempt after a foul.

Foster and Donahue were named Honorable Mention All-Tournament.

In the championship game, New York Aquatic Club A got superior goaltending from Olympic goaltender Dan Hackett, while Steve Gill scored three goals to lead NYAC to a 7-4 victory over Olympic Club.