Men’s Water Polo readies for
new season of possibilities

Steve Morano
MSMU Class of 2024

(10/2024) After a grueling 2023 season where the Mount St. Mary’s men’s water polo team recorded a 7-23 record, the team under the command of second year head coach, Justin Vink, looks to make a splash with new faces and better play. But with the new season naturally comes challenges for the team as they have faced ranked opponents in No. 10 Fordham and will continue to face tougher competition from California later this season. The season will be both a test and a tell of what is to come for both the players and the program.

In last year’s edition of the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference, the Mount played ranked opponents on three occasions during the regular season, with losses to No. 6 Pacific, No. 17 Fordham and No. 18 Navy. Losses to ranked opponents during the playoffs in No. 3 Bucknell, No.7 Johns Hopkins and No. 5 George Washington rounded out a tough season for the Mountaineers. But with blocks to build on for this upcoming season, spirits were high as the program entered its fifth year in existence as a varsity program at the Mount.

With the Mount opening their season at the Navy Open on September 7th, they faced tough competition in the form of No. 17 Navy, Biola, Gannon, Occidental and McKendree. With a 18-14 win against McKendree to open the season, the Mountaineers dropped their next four against the rest of the field. But with the Navy game, which ended 21-7, rounding out the only blowout of the weekend, the Mount’s losses amounted to games only lost by two or three goals. A 15-14 loss to Biola ended the weekend for the Mount as they held onto a 1-4 record to start the year.

Their next batch of games came at the Salem Invitational in Morgantown, West Virginia, the Mount faced Gannon, LIU, Salem, and Mercyhurst, with their final game against the Lakers counting towards their conference record. With losses in their first three games of the Invite, they jumped out to a lead against Mercyhurst where they held onto win 17-10. Graduate Student Vasilije Marinkovic set a program record for 25 saves in a single game for the Mount against LIU, but the team still fell 14-13. Even with their loses in Morgantown, they still came down to a two or three goal difference.

Entering into the Bucknell Invitational, the mount played the hosts to open their weekend. Goals came quick in the first quarter as the teams exchanged goals back-to-back ending in a 5-4 Bison lead through the first. In the first two minutes of the match, junior Alexandros Bellesis scored a goal that gave him sole ownership of the programs all-time goals scored, overtaking the 2021 record of 159 goals set by Jason O’Donnell. Senior Michael Lemishko scored thirty second into the second quarter to tie the game before Bucknell rattled off three unanswered goals to take a 10-6 lead into the halftime break. Goals from sophomore Aaron Tarr, and junior Chrysostomos Valavanis helped the Mountaineers rebound in the third to trail by four goals to start the final quarter. Spirits were high as the players dove into the pool for the final bit of action, but two quick goals from Bucknell extinguished their hopes. But the team did not give up, answering back with goals from Valavanis and Bellesis. The Mount went onto lose the game 18-13 against the hosts.

The rest of the weekend continued to be tough for the Mount as they lost to No. 10 Fordham 21-5, Wagner 16-15, and Saddleback 13-12. The Wagner game provided some controversy at the end, however. With fifteen seconds left in the match, the Mount scored to tie the game 15-15, but with three seconds on the clock, Wagner scored to make it 16-15. But the umpire officiating the game ended the game early, not seeing that the goal was scored with time still left on the clock.

After a 2-10 start to the season, the Mount travels next to California, where they will play Biola and Concordia before taking on California Baptist, Loyola Marymount, Air Force and Pomona-Pitzer at the Gary Troyer Tournament starting on October 4th. On the weekend of October 11th-13th, they begin their home MAWP matchups taking on Salem, Mercyhurst, George Washington and Johns Hopkins before traveling to Providence Rhode Island to take on Brown, UC Merced, Chapman and Salem once again. They then round out the rest of their conference away games before the start of the conference playoffs.

Through the tough results that have come in the past couple of weeks, there have been silver linings in the games played. Alexandros Bellesis has scored 29 times followed by Valavanis’ 21 goals and Lemishko with 18. Aaron Tarr has provided 31 assists in 12 games played so far this season, showing crucial drive inside the six-meter line. And Vasilije Marinkovic has made 74 saves in six games started for the Mount, proving to be an impervious stopper in between the sticks.

Even with the early tough tests to start the year, the men’s water polo team has the potential and the drive to be successful when the season gets into the dog days. But they have shown that they have the statistics on paper to get things done. Once a lineup comes along that has been tested, games will once again become easier for the team to play in. With the skills and experience that occupies this team, there is little doubt that they will eventually find their feet and begin to win games.