Whittier, CA - Playing in front of a sold out home crowd Whittier College won the inaugural USA Water Polo Division III National Championship with a 5-3 victory over Claremont Mudd Scripps. Five different players scored for Whittier while Murat Ersoz came up big in the net with 15 saves. Earlier in the day MIT took down Johns Hopkins 20-13 to take third place. Leading the way on offense for MIT was Clyde Huibregtse who scored 7 goals while Hayden Niederreiter recorded 12 saves in the cage.
Whittier started out strong as Micah Kamai made it 1-0 less than 30 seconds into the game. Claremont Mudd Scripps fought back as they answered with two goals of their own through Koss Klobucher and CJ Box to take a 2-1 advantage at the end of the first quarter. The second quarter was all Whittier as they went on a 4-0 run powered by goals from Dominick Nevarez, Maxwell Murphy, Eric Borunda and Carlos Heredia Viteri. Meanwhile Ersoz and the Whitter defense shut out Claremont Mudd Scripps as Whittier took a 5-2 lead at halftime.
The third quarter was a goalless affair as Ersoz and Clameront goalie Noah Smith came up with several huge saves to keep the score at 5-2 heading into the final quarter. Claremont quickly answered by opening the fourth quarter with a goal by Will Clark to narrow Whittier's advantage to 5-3, but that was all they were able to muster as Ersoz and the Whittier defense closed out the game giving Whittier it's first USA Water Polo Divsion III National Championship. Whittier went 3-for-6 on power plays while Claremont Mudd Scripps was 1-for-10. For live stats from this weekend's games
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All-Tournament Team
MVP: Murat Ersoz - GK - Whittier
Dominick Nevarez - Whittier
Hans Zdolsek - WhittierÂ
Ethan Lewis - CMS
Zack Rossman - CMSÂ
Clyde Huibregtse  - MIT
Hayden Niederreiter - MIT
Finn Banks - Johns HopkinsÂ
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