BUCS victory for Waterpolo

After securing 4th place in the Premier South division, a home draw against Northumbria awaited the Imperial College Men’s waterpolo team in the first cup round of BUCS on Wednesday. With a number of starting players missing, things were not looking good, and early in the week they quickly got a lot worse. Problems with pool bookings left the team with nowhere to play the match and at risk of conceding a walkover.

Lengthy negotiations with Northumbria eventually led to the agreement that the only option was to travel away to them. With less than 24 hours notice the team gathered 13 dedicated players and organised trains to make it up north just in time.

The match began and Northumbria’s home advantage let them strike first with an early opening goal, but it wasn’t long before one of our medics, Alex Macaulay, bagged an equalizer after getting free from his marker down the right wing. Another Northumbria goal quickly put them back in front, but TJ, Ramon Fernandez, responded with a great shot from far out to end the first quarter 2-2.

As the second quarter progressed, growing home support pushed Northumbria into the lead and by the third quarter they had accumulated a four goal advantage. Running out of time, four goals down, and a long way from home, things weren’t looking good for Imperial. A time out was called to gather the team before the game slipped out of reach.

Imperial came out of the time out composed and determined, quickly scoring three goals in a row with no response from Northumbria thanks to solid defence and great saves from goalkeeper Maurice Zard. The third quarter continued and Northumbria managed to regain their lead leaving the score 10-8.

The talk going into the final quarter stressed the importance of keeping our defence strong, and a reminder of how important the match was sent the tired Imperial team out with a new lease of life. Impeccable defending left Northumbria frustrated and prevented them from scoring a single goal in the last quarter despite having three man-up attacks. Still two goals down with only three minutes left on the clock Maurice made another top save, passed the ball down the right wing to Alberto Lauri who played a perfect pass into Ramon’s hand on the left. Ramon exclaimed “this one’s for you Jenny!” as he put the ball away for his fourth and most important goal of the game.

With less than a minute left on the clock swim captain, Alex Picksley, made a decisive tackle in our half and played the ball to safety. From there, Laurie Edwards, managed to get the ball to captain, James (Irish) Mccomish, who came in from the right side and put the ball past their keeper on the near post to level the scores 10-10 with less than 20 seconds remaining. The final whistle blew and penalties were to follow.

Alberto scored the first penalty for Imperial and Maurice made an important save putting us in a good position. Adamos Solomou stepped up next and scored, again followed by a Northumbria miss. Northumbria pulled back thanks to an Imperial miss, but David calmly scored his to keep the pressure on. A questionable signal from the ref meant Imperial captain, Irish, horribly miscued his penalty and didn’t even get to take it forcing the teams into sudden death instead of securing the win. Alex Macaulay scored, as did Northumbria. Next up, Laurie Edwards kept calm under the pressure and scored, putting everything on their next penalty taker. Imperial stood poolside watching as Northumbria took a strong penalty towards the bottom right corner. But somehow, after four long quarters and six good penalties, Maurice had the legs to get his hand to it sending the ball onto the post, and Imperial into the next round.

Well-deserved celebrations began immediately and the team travelled home with high hopes for the next stage of the competition in Sheffield in March.