Cambridge, Mass. – The No. 4 Stanford men’s water polo team scored a combined 50 goals in a pair of convincing victories over Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to open the season Saturday in the first day of the Bruno Classic, hosted by Brown University. The Cardinal’s two contests were played at Blodgett Pool on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Mass.
Stanford scored the first six goals of the game, en route to a 29-9 victory over MIT in its first contest of the day. Senior Bret Bonanni guided the Cardinal with nine goals in the first contest.
Led by five goals from freshman Kyle Weikert and four each from Bonanni and Adam Abdulhamid, the Cardinal posted a 21-5 victory over Harvard in the evening.
Stanford responded from an early Harvard goal with an 8-0 run and never looked back en route to the win. A 43-second spurt in the first quarter produced three goals with sophomore Cody Smith opening the scoring at the 4:44 mark of the opening period. Bonanni and Abdulhamid followed with goals at the 4:35 and 4:01 mark, respectively.
Stanford held Harvard scoreless for over 10 minutes, while getting two more goals from Abdulhamid, another each from Bonanni and Smith and a score from freshman Marco Stanchi to build the 8-1 advantage.
The Cardinal and Crimson traded goals over the final 3:18 of the second quarter to make it 10-3 at the half.
Stanford out-scored Harvard, 11-2, in the second half with Weikert producing four of his five goals over the final two quarters.
Sophomore Cody Smith (three goals), freshmen Marco Stanchi (two goals) and Blake Parrish (two goals), and redshirt freshman Grant Sivesind (one goal) each contributed scores for the Cardinal against Harvard.
Stanford will close play in the Bruno Classic with three games on Sunday as the Cardinal faces St. Francis Brooklyn at 6:15 a.m. PT, Bucknell at 8:45 a.m. PT, and hosts Brown at 12:30 p.m. PT on the Brown campus in Providence, R.I.