Men's Water Polo

NWP Notebook: Brown Hires New Coach

Interview with Mercado




Oct. 15, 2008

By Trevor Freeman

Special to NCAA.com

 

Fresh off a weekend that clinched the CWPA Northern Division, I got a chance to speak with the head coach of one of our nation’s elite academic institutions.  Brown University has long been a water polo power on the East Coast and they are poised to crash the Final Four party this season.  Felix Mercado was hired in the summer of 2007 and is emerging as one of the top young coaches in our sport.  He came to Brown from MIT where he successfully led the Engineers to an appearance at Eastern Championships.  That run earned him CWPA Northern Division Coach of the Year honors in 2006.  The best thing I can say about his Brown team comes from having watched them clinically beat Fordham 12-6 on Friday night.  In the last three quarters of that game, Brown did not make one critical error.  They adjusted to the way the referees were calling the game, attacked the crashes and zones being applied on Mike Gartner with precision and played ferocious defense.  In summary, they are a well-coached water polo team.  I sat down with Mercado and discussed his team and below is our interview. 

 

Brown's win over St. Francis earlier in the season signaled that you are squarely in the mix for the Eastern Championship.  What does your squad have to do in order to get over the hump and into the Final Four?

This may sound cliché, but we are trying to take it one game at a time.  There is a lot more competition in the North this season.  We still have Fordham, Iona and Queens College and they can all beat us.  We also learned from last season that your record in October has no bearing on how you do in November.

The East does seem like an absolute free for all right now as there are a number of teams that will be walking into Easterns believing that they have a great chance to make the Final Four.  What are your thoughts on this parity that has developed in both the East and in your Northern Division?

The competition has been great.  You look at this week and our opponents in Fordham, Iona and Queens and they are going to give us strong competition.  It is scary to think that we could have a great regular season and then lose in the first round of Easterns.  There are great coaches on the East Coast as well and we are beginning to recruit more top athletes. This will be great for the sport over the long run.

Mike Gartner is a great player who has had a great career.  What makes him the special player that he is?

Work Ethic.  People do not realize how hard Mike Gartner works in both the pool and the weight room.  In games, he always gets in position and draws ejections.  It doesn't matter the competition, as he was drawing them against teams like Stanford and St. Francis.  He also has a lot more patience than in years past.  We are attacking zones and drops better this season and getting him the ball as well.

Kent Holland has had an outstanding season for Brown in the cage.  What has he done to develop into a very good goalkeeper?

Kent Holland had a great experience playing in USA Water Polo's Premier League.  I believe his Northeast team even beat the team from Northern California.  He is also 6'6" and is using his size to make it tougher for teams to score on him.

Are there any players who haven't made an impact yet that you see stepping up down the stretch?

The seniors are who will lead us.  Hank Weintraub, Grant LeBeau, Nico Fort and Mike Gartner have all had great careers here.  They have weathered so much including their pool being closed last year.  Everybody underestimates Gordon Hood, Corey Schwartz and Toby Espinosa as well.  I think they will have strong finishes to the season.

How difficult or easy is it to recruit players to a prestigious, Ivy League University like Brown?

It isn't difficult to recruit the kids that can help the program.  It is getting them admitted that can be the challenging part.  I just have to help admissions see how great the kid is that I am sending to them.  I learned a lot from my experience coaching MIT and I think that helped me to hit the ground running here.  We compete from the same recruiting pond as Stanford, Princeton and Harvard.

 

Brown had a great weekend in clinching the CWPA Northern Division title.  On Friday night, the Bears defeated Fordham 12-6 behind exceptional efforts out of both Kent Holland and Mike Gartner.  Holland saved two five-meter penalty shots in that game and Gartner drew a ton of power plays.  You can make an outstanding argument that the difference between Fordham and Brown is Gartner’s play at two-meters.  Gartner swims down to the two meter line on every possession, sees what the defender wants to do and then adapts.  He is willing to accept fronts, hold a side and let the ball get down to the wing.  He also has no problem gaining a frontal position and then using his strong legs to back down the 2-Meter defender.  Quite simply, he plays hole set in a way that makes everybody around him on offense more successful.  The next day Brown defeated Iona and Queens.  The win over Iona was the one that clinched the Northern Division and it came on a Corey Schwartz goal with 41 seconds left.

 

The water polo universe was centered on Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount this weekend as the SoCal Tournament took place with the entire top ten and a majority of the national top 20 comprising the field.  USC and their unbeaten record was the storyline coming into it.  And while it took overtime in a thrilling championship game with Stanford, the Trojans maintained that perfect mark.  USC was dominant on day one of the tournament as they defeated Pomona-Pitzer 18-1 and then UCSB 11-4.  The Trojans then followed that up by avenging last season’s NCAA title loss to California by defeating the Golden Bears 12-7.  This game was decided when USC scored seven consecutive goals in the first half to grab a convincing 8-1 lead.  The Trojans were then able to keep Cal at arm’s length the rest of the contest.  In the championship game, USC beat Stanford 8-7 with an Arjan Ligtenberg overtime goal being the difference.

 

Despite losing to USC in the Championship game, Stanford has to be leaving this tournament feeling pretty good about themselves.  In last month’s NorCal Invitational, USC routed the Cardinal 10-3 in the semifinals of that tournament.  This time around, Stanford proved to everybody that they could play with the Trojans.  Also, the Cardinal not only beat UCLA 7-4 but held them scoreless for over twenty minutes in that game.  Will Hindle-Katel and Janson Wigo each had two goals in that important win.  On day one of the tournament, Stanford beat Loyola Marymount 10-8 in a game that many thought the Lions might be able to steal.  Seven different Cardinals scored in that contest and Jimmie Sandman saved seven shots.  Stanford defeated Princeton prior to the LMU game 12-4 behind four goals from Janson Wigo. 

 

One major storyline that emerged at the SoCal Invitational was California announcing to the rest of the college water polo world that they aren’t dead just yet.  The Golden Bears beat UCLA 12-11 in double overtime to finish third place in this tournament.  The win came on a hustle play as Cory Nasoff had a five-meter penalty shot blocked by Chay Lapin, however the ball bounced right to Brian Dudley who was able to put home the game-winner as time expired.  Many observers were writing the Golden Bears obituary after a three-game losing streak to UCLA, Stanford and Pepperdine.  However, California was outstanding in beating Eastern powerhouse St. Francis, Pepperdine and UCLA.

 

Other teams that have to be happy with their showing include Pepperdine, UC San Diego and Princeton.  The Waves shrugged off a quarterfinal loss to California and defeated UCSB and Loyola Marymount to win fifth place.  Grant Miller scored four goals in that fifth place win over LMU.  The Tritons of UC San Diego defeated UC Santa Barbara in quadruple overtime when Adnan Jerkovic dialed up a skip shot goal to clinch seventh place.  A.J. Kotanjian scored four goals in that win.  UC San Diego also defeated Long Beach State for a second time this season on day one of the tournament.  Their two losses were a spirited 12-9 decision against UCLA and a double overtime defeat to Loyola Marymount.  Also, Princeton has to be quietly pleased with their 11th place finish.  The Tigers rebounded from losing to Stanford on day one to beat an MPSF school in Pacific 12-10.  Jeff Cole had six goals and Mike Merlone had eleven saves in the Princeton victory.  On day two, Princeton lost to Long Beach State but then won a big pride game for the East as they defeated SCIAC power Redlands 12-11 in quadruple overtime to claim 11th.

 

Prior to the SoCal Tournament, UCLA and Loyola Marymount hooked up in a game that many observers thought would be a low scoring thriller.  UCLA had different ideas though as their counterattack and Chay Lapin combined to turn the contest into a 9-2 rout.  Krsto Sbutega had four goals and Lapin had fifteen saves in the Bruin win.  Last week also saw the Midshipmen of Navy quietly win two important games as they defeated Johns Hopkins and George Washington.  UC-Davis beat Santa Clara 12-7 on Friday behind Adam Bennett’s three goals and is a team that is flying under the radar right now.  Maybe they do not have the big names like they did last season in Nick Arrigo and Mike McGee but they are a solid squad that seems to be getting warmer as the season has progressed. 

 

Players to Watch

 

Matt Sagehorn, J.W. Krumpholz, Shea Buckner, USC, Jrs.:  Somebody in the USC marketing department needs to come up with a great nickname for these three juniors as they have been outstanding in leading USC to their perfect start.  The three players scored eighteen goals on the weekend.  More than that though, in the game against Stanford they combined to score four straight goals and helped will that team to victory.  The only thing left remaining for these three kids to accomplish is winning the NCAA title that has been so close that USC could taste it the past two campaigns.  

 

Contest To Keep An Eye On

 

Stanford travels to Westwood this weekend and this game is so important on so many levels as success for both of these sides involves making the NCAA Final Four.  With UCLA having finished second at the NorCal Invitational and Stanford scoring second at last weekend’s SoCal Invitational, the two teams are even in terms of at-large resume.  The last two distinguishers will be MPSF regular season and tournament finish.  Whoever wins this game will have the inside track on second place in the MPSF.

 

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