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Nov. 6, 2009

• CWPA Southern Division Championship Schedule

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The No. 12-ranked Navy water polo team begins its postseason run this weekend as the top seed at the CWPA Southern Division Championship being held in Lewisburg, Pa. The Mids enter the tournament with a 17-8 overall record and are the top seed as they tied for the regular-season title with a 6-2 record.

Navy will play the winner of Penn State-Behrend and Washington & Jefferson on Saturday morning at 11:30 am, then will face off against either George Washington or Johns Hopkins. The winners' bracket game is at 5:45 on Saturday, while the title game will be played at 3:30 on Sunday.

The Mids enter the tournament on yet another late-season run. Navy has won six straight games and eight of its last nine contests. It marks the fifth time in the last seven years that Navy will enter the Southern Division Championship on a winning streak of six games or greater. Navy started the year just 5-4, but since Sept. 12, has gone 12-4.

Navy needs two wins to run its streak to 28 years of winning at least 19 games in a season. In addition, Navy will face an unranked team in the first two games this weekend. Since the 2004 season, Navy is 75-2 against unranked teams. Lastly, this year's senior class owns a 66-8 (.892) record against East Coast teams over the last four years.

Offensively, sophomore Stevie Ray leads a balanced Navy attack with 57 points on a team-best 40 goals and 17 assists, which ranks second on the squad. Classmate Kyle Wertz is second on the team with 51 points and 37 goals. Johnny Meiners (32-15-47) and Luke Baldwin (25-19-44) are both also over 40 points on the season, while Kevin Bell (23-11-34), who missed nine games with an injury at the start of year, Conor Handley (21-4-25) and Jordan Carter (15-9-24) are also major contributors. This year's team has a legitimate shot to have five players score 50 points in a season for the first time since 1997.

Defensively, Brett Rajchel has started 21 games in goal, registering a .503 save percentage with 159 saves this season. He has 418 saves during his career, ranking seventh on the Navy career saves list.

This will be the Mids' 17th appearance in the CWPA Southern Division Championship. Navy has won 11 titles previously and finished second the other five times. Navy owns a 49-5 (.907) all-time record in the tournament, and all five losses have come to Princeton, making Navy 40-0 against all other opponents.

The top four finishers will advance to the CWPA Eastern Division Championship to be held Nov. 20-22, in Cambridge, Mass. The winner of the Eastern Championship receives the bid to the NCAA Tournament.

# GO NAVY #