PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island – The Marist water polo team picked up its first victory of the season with an 11-8 win at the #T25 Brown Bears in the Bruno Classic on Saturday evening. Earlier in the day, the Red Foxes fell to the #19 Harvard Crimson 13-3.

SUMMARY VS HARVARD:

The Crimson opened the scoring with goals at the 5:17 and 3:58 mark of the first quarter, before sophomore Anais Mathes trimmed the score to 2-1 just before time expired in the period.

Harvard answered with back-to-back-to-back goals to open the second before junior Susan Cantoni brought Marist within three at 5-2 with nine seconds left in the half. However, the Crimson answered with another score with one second left and the two teams headed into halftime with the score 6-2 in favor of Harvard.

Mathes notched her second goal of the game just 55 seconds into the third quarter to trim the deficit to 6-3 but the Crimson answered with a 7-0 run to close out the game and pick up the 13-3 victory.

KEY STATS VS HARVARD:

• Despite the 10 goal difference, Harvard only outshot the Red Foxes 22-21
• The Crimson scored 6 PP goals to Marist's 2
• Each team forced 5 turnovers
• Harvard finished with a .591 shooting percentage while the Red Foxes shot .143

GAME NOTES VS HARVARD:

• Mathes led the team with 2 goals and 1 assist

SUMMARY VS BROWN:

Marist struck first when Grace Doerfler found the back of the net on an assist from junior co-captain Katherine Tijerina 1:01 into the game. Just over three minutes later, Mathes doubled the Red Foxes' lead with a power play goal on another Tijerina assist and the Bears got on the board with a goal just before time expired in the opening frame.

Back-to-back Brown goals to open the second quarter gave the Bears the 3-2 lead with 6:51 left in the half. Twenty five seconds later, Marist evened the score on a goal by Doerfler from freshman Aminadi Anorve but 33 seconds after, Brown regained the lead with an even strength goal. The lead didn't last long though, as a goal by sophomore Lexi Puhl again tied the game just 19 seconds later. With 3:30 left in the half, the Bears took the lead for a third time but again the Red Foxes answered, this time on a goal by Anorve on the power play off a third Tijerina assist. Just over three minutes later, Mathes regained the lead for Marist on a power play goal off an assist from Puhl but Brown answered with four seconds remaining in the half and the two teams entered halftime with the score deadlocked at 6-6.

The Red Foxes opened the scoring in the second half with a power play goal by Doerfler, her third of the game, off an assist from sophomore Justine Castro to take the 7-6 lead. Back-to-back even strength goals by the Bears brought the score to 8-7 in favor of the home team with 1:20 left in the third quarter but Mathes' third goal of the game with seconds left evened the score with eight minutes left to play.

Determined to get the victory, Marist found the back of the net three times, twice on the power play, with goals by Anorve, senior co-captain Diana Carballo and Tijerina and held Brown scoreless to pick up the 11-8 win.

KEY STATS VS BROWN

• The Bears outshot the Red Foxes 25-20
• Marist converted on 6-9 power plays while Brown converted on 2-9
• The Red Foxes shot .550 and the Bears shot .320

GAME NOTES VS BROWN:

• Mathes tied a team high with three goals and tied a team high with 3 assists
• Doerfler notched her first hat trick of the season
• Tijerina finished with a season high 3 assists
• Puhl picked up a season high 2 assists

QUOTE:

"We failed forward today" said head coach Chris Vidale. "I'm happy to see that we had the mental toughness to come back tonight and play a second game and succeed. The game was a total team effort and the results of our hard work showed in the 4th quarter."

UP NEXT:

Marist now has two weeks off from competition before heading to Princeton, NJ for the Princeton Invite where they will play the George Washington Colonials (9:15 a.m.) and the #T25 Bucknell Bison (1 p.m.) on Saturday, Feb. 17.