Water Polo Falls in Overtime at Deerfield for First Time Since '09

DEERFIELD, MA - After putting up a long, difficult fight, Big Red dropped a close game in overtime to Deerfield last Saturday.The game began with Exeter dominating, establishing a 4-1 lead in the first quarter after lower Ernesto Brown’s buzzer beater half-court shot. Deerfield quickly hit back, however, leveling the scoreboard by the end of the fourth quarter.Deerfield took control in overtime, netting a goal with a minute left on the clock. They managed to hold off the Big Red onslaught until the final buzzer, sealing a tight 9-8 win.After a tough battle, the boys now see their flaws on both offense and defense. “Deerfield is one of the fastest teams in the league, so watching for counterattacks was key,” lower David Shepley said. “One of our biggest goals to work on this season is playing alert and thinking about defense during offense, so I think that this is something that we need to work more on because every counter we let up offers the other team a chance to score.”“We realized that we needed to take smart shots and really make the most of the shot clock,” Shepley continued. “The game was definitely in our reach, but we just suffered from small errors that set us back when it really counted.”Senior Angus Gorman agreed and also credited Deerfield for bringing different plays to the pool. “It was a new type of defense we’d never faced before, hard press, so we had to adapt to what they were doing,” he said. “We got a couple of lucky calls which gave us an early confidence, probably ill-deserved. We got a lot of breaks, lots of lucky chances, but it seemed like we couldn’t really capitalize on anything.”While the loss may come as a surprise, considering that last year’s matchup ended as a 13-3 landslide victory for Bear Polo, the co-captains maintained a positive outlook on the remainder of the season.“The game was pretty disappointing, but I feel like we worked really hard and fought through it. We definitely have a lot to work on, but we know what we need to work on and we film the games, so we’ll be able to make the improvements,” senior JB Baker said. “I think some of the highlights were probably our resilience. We kept fighting back.”Fellow senior co-captain Nick du Pont agreed. “The game opened our eyes to a lot of areas that we could improve on, both physically and mentally,” he said. “I think if we improve in the next few weeks and get better in the ways we know we can, we can beat them next time.”