PASADENA, Calif. – The Caltech men's water polo team took on the No. 5 MIT Engineers in a hard-fought battle, falling by a score of 24-9 and evening their record to 2-2 on the season.  

Caltech was led in scoring by first-year utility Carl Crum (San Carlos, Calif. / Sacred Heart), who accounted for four goals in the match. At 5:40 in the first period after an exclusion on MIT, Crum opened the Beavers' scoring on a powerplay goal off an assist from sophomore attacker Justin Hong (Pasadena, Calif. / Pasadena). 

The Beavers trailed the Engineers later on but their strong attack was persistent throughout the game. Many of the Beavers got involved in the scoring as six different players tallied at least one goal. Heramba Patil (Bellevue, Wash. / Interlake), Joshua Braun (Bakersfield, Calif. / Garces Memorial), Alexi Stapf (Santa Barbara, Calif. San Marcos), Maxwell Woodruff Vale (Austin, Texas / Liberal Arts and Science Academy) and the newest member of the Caltech squad, graduate student Andrés Heredia (San Diego / Francis Parker) all got in on the action with a goal apiece. Heredia further dished out three assists in his Caltech Men's Water Polo debut.

Despite the high-scoring effort from MIT, goalkeeper Sujit Iyer (Mariata, Ga. / Wheeler) made seven impressive saves and two steals to give the Beavers' defense an extra spark. 

Head Coach Jon Bonafede and the Beavers will look to bounce back in their next match, taking on the Citrus College Owls on Tuesday, Sep. 17 at 3:00 p.m. This will be the first of four away matches in a row before Caltech returns home to face local SCIAC rival Occidental College on Sep. 28 at 11:00 a.m.

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