By TJ Murphy ‘20

The Crusaders were hoping for a win against De La Salle to kick off the water polo season, but sadly a win was not in store.

The first quarter went great as the Crusaders held their weight. Seniors TJ Murphy and Andrew Cwik each scored a goal, along with junior Pat Ward and freshman Alex Chicowicz. The final score for the quarter was 4-3.

It was not until the second quarter in which the Meteors gained a huge lead, putting six goals up on the scoreboard.

During the third quarter, the Crusaders started to work harder, and were able to score two goals off of fast breaks, both scored by senior Andrew Cwik. Sadly, when the offense was doing well the defense did worse, and the Meteors scored 3 goals.

The Crusaders fell off in the fourth, and let up 7 goals while only scoring 1. The final score was 20-5.

Junior Pat Ward said, “There’s been a lot of adjustments this year and a lot of learning in just one week, and I think that we were overwhelmed this first game.”

Speaking from the deck, Coach Frank Mulcrone said, “We started strong but we just weren’t able to keep up. We’re going to work harder at practice and hopefully show our potential at the next game.”

The Crusaders will be traveling to Oak Park, Illinois, to face off against the St. Pat’s Shamrocks for a chance to redeem themselves this season.