Toronto - The McMaster men's water polo team took home the bronze medal at the OUA Men's Water Polo Championships over the weekend. Veteran Jack Park (Waterdown, Ont.) earned All-Star honours for his play over the weekend games.
In the round robin, first up for the Marauders was the Ottawa Gee-Gees. In the first, McMaster would lead 3-0 thanks to goals from J. Park, Graham Park (Waterdown, Ont.) and rookie Jack Tang (Hamilton, Ont.). In the second, Ottawa would score two goals to bring them within one but McMaster would continue their scoring torrent with three more, one from J. Park, one from Roland White (Vancouver) and Cale Carlsen (Hamilton, Ont.). The third saw Ottawa score another and McMaster score four more. Goal scorers in the third were J. Park with two more, White and G. Park. In the fourth, the Marauders really took it to the Gee-Gees scoring five thanks to one each from the Park brothers, another from Tang and two from Tristan Colterjohn (Hamilton, Ont.). The final score of McMaster's first game of the weekend would be 15-3.
Also in McMaster's pool in round robin play was the Western Mustangs. The former OUA silver medallists lead in the first 2-1 with only G. Park being able to find the back of the net. In the second, McMaster would score four more to Western's one. Goal scorers in the second included the Park brothers with one each, Tang and rookie Sean Leisk (London, Ont.). In the third is when the Marauders ran away with it, not allowing the Mustangs to score any, and scoring five themselves from five different Marauders. Richard Saunders (Hamilton, Ont.), Nick Jeffrey (Hamilton, Ont.), Tang and the Park brothers each scored one. In the fourth Western scored another but McMaster scored three more to end the game with goals from J. Park, Carlsen and Jeffrey. McMaster would earn the win with a score of 13-4.
The Marauders also took on the York Lions in their last game of round robin play and finished first in their pool with an 11-8 win.
In the semifinals, the powerhouse Carleton Ravens were matched up with the Marauders. Despite a hard fought battle on both ends of the pool, the Ravens would advance to the finals with a score of 7-4.
In the bronze medal match, the Marauders were once again matched up against the York Lions. in the first, McMaster earned the slight 4-3 lead with two goals from J. Park, one from Saunders and another from Tang. In the seond is when McMaster started to pull away with the lead scoring 4 and only allowing York to score one. Saunders and rookie Ryan McHaffie (Ancaster, Ont.) woudl score one each and J. Park would score two more. In the third, the Marauders continued to dominate with goals from Saunders, White, Colterjohn, Jeffrey and McHaffie while the Lions only scored two. The fourth saw the Marauders sail to victory scoring another four thanks to Colterjohn, Jeffrey and two more from Carlsen.
The Marauders finished third, winning the OUA bronze medal. The Carleton Ravens would go on to be the eventual OUA Champions and the Toronto Varsity Blues finished second.
