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Monday, November 4, 2002
Contact: Peter Bailley
news@knox.edu
309-341-7715
GALESBURG -- The Knox College Water Polo Team finished 10th in the Collegiate Water Polo Association Division III National Collegiate Club Championship, held Nov. 1-3 at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. It's the first club team in Knox history to qualify for a national tournament. [Photo: Knox water Polo Team member Wren Davisson practices in the Knox pool. Download for publication.]
Knox lost to New York University 15-7, then defeated Trinity College of Hartford, Connecticut, 9-8, to gain a tenth-place finish. Airplane trouble delayed Knox's arrival and forced Knox to forfeit its first game in the tournament to the eventual champion, Rochester Institute of Technology. Knox came into the tournament seeded 11th in an 11-team field.
Knox qualified for the tournament by finishing fourth, with a record of 5-6, in the Heartland Division, which sent three other teams to the tournament — Grinnell College of Iowa, St. John's College of Minnesota, and St. Mary's College of Minnesota.
"We had trouble adjusting to the larger pool," said Jonathan Powers, the coach of the team and a member of the economics faculty at Knox. "The team had a tough start when the plane they were on was forced to turn back twenty minutes into the flight, because of a vibration in one of the engines. Because we were late, we had to forfeit our first game in the tournament."
Water Polo Club Team
(Tournament Squad)
Noah Dorson, SO, Tucson, AZ
Reid Woodridge, FR, Cedar Rapids, IA
Jason Reeves, JR, Farmingham, NM
Greg Saul, SR, Napoleon, OH
Wren Davisson, SO, West Lafayette, IN
Barry Tiggemann, SR, Colorado Springs, CO
Jo Bradley, JR, Austin, TX
Mary O'Malley, JR, Chicago, IL
Hassan Massoud, FR, Cairo, Egypt
Julie Larsen, JR, Puyallup, WA
Joel Christensen, FR, Kansas City, MO
(Other club members)
Jamie Hermes, Chris Ferguson, Jenn King, Jackie
Sevarino, Marisa Jobst, Rachel Svhela, Kirsten Janosek, Kelly Van Winkle
Coach: Jonathan Powers
Captain: Mary O'Malley
Related Pages
Tournament Results
Background
Powers and the club discovered each other in September 2000, at Knox's "Pumphandle," where faculty, students and staff gather for a start-of-school hand-shaking celebration.
"I was standing next to Larry Brady, the swim team coach, and we started talking about swimming and water polo, both of which I had competed in when I was an undergraduate," Powers said. "A few days later, Judy Jenkins, the head of the water polo club, invited me to practice with them."
"Water polo requires strong swimming," Powers said. "They play four seven-minute periods, but there's a lot of back-and-forth and a lot of time where the clock stops, so they're in pool for more than an hour."
Powers earned his bachelor's degree at Amherst College and his doctorate at Northwestern University. A member of the Knox faculty since 2000, he specializes in microeconomics, game theory, economics of information, and industrial organization.
Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 48 states and 40 nations. Knox's "Old Main" is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.
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