Hoosiers dominate tournament despite one loss

Going into this weekend's tournament the IU women's water polo team knew that out of the five team field Michigan would be their only competition. Coach Barry King said that the focus of the weekend would be the Wolverines and that the Hoosiers had a great chance to beat them this time.\nKing was right. They had a chance to beat Michigan and no other teams gave them any competition. The Hoosiers had a great chance to beat the Wolverines as they started the game off strong. \nThe score was tied after the first period, but in the second period the Hoosiers scored four unanswered goals to lead at halftime 5-1.\nSenior All-American Kristin Stanford scored the first two goals, freshmen Emily Schmitt and Bridget McKeon scored the next two, followed by senior Ginger Wang to end the half. \nThe Hoosiers appeared ready to finally record a victory over their biggest rival.\nIn the second half the Wolverines came out fighting scoring the first two goals early in the third period. But the Hoosiers were not deterred as junior Melissa Pietras scored in the third quarter to give the Hoosiers a 6-3 lead. \nAfter this is where the game went downhill for the Hoosiers. With little time remaining in the third period sophomore Krista Peterson was elbowed in the face by a Michigan player. No foul was called and the Wolverines player scored to end the period. In the fourth period the Wolverines managed to tie the game and send it to overtime. This marked the sixth time in the history the two teams would go into overtime against each other.\nIn the first overtime each team's defense stayed strong as neither Michigan or IU scored. In the second overtime Michigan's Julie Nisbet scored, and then with the game basically over the Wolverines scored again giving them a 9-7 victory.\nAfter the hard fought, bitter loss to Michigan the Hoosiers came back strong to end the tournament shutting out Washington and Jefferson, 14-0.\nBefore the loss to Michigan the Hoosiers easily took care of their first two opponents. In the first game Saturday morning the Hoosiers beat Penn State-Behrend, 15-1 behind four goals from freshmen Courtney Thom. Later in the day IU took care of Mercyhurst winning 20-3 as freshmen Clare Meadows scored three goals in the game. The Hoosiers finished 3-1 on the weekend and look to remain successful in conference games as they have eight remaining which determine the seeding for the upcoming conference and division tournaments.