56 AND COUNTING
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Against Calvert Hall in water polo, Loyola's Dons still find themselves treading in the Cardinals' wake.
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by Joe DiBlasi
Calvert Hall's water polo coach Don Anderson has been heading up the school's program for seven years.
In that time, he has yet to lose an MIAA A Conference game.
Monday's contest against Loyola was no different.
In the season finale against their arch-rivals, the Cardinals racked up their 56th straight MIAA win during Anderson's tenure, 15-9.
Just as the Dons did in the first match up last month, they played a stellar first half, trailing only 6-5 after some great play from Tyler Thein (three goals) and Charlie Waesche (two goals).
But just like the Cardinals did on September 25th at Loyola -- when the first half ended deadlocked at 4-4, before the Cardinals went on to a 10-5 victory -- the third quarter was all Calvert Hall, yet again.
"I was in a zone, but I can't take all the credit," said Mike Helou, who scored three of his seven goals in the period to help stake the Cardinals to a 12-6 lead.
"I was getting great passes from my teammates, and they made sure Loyola didn't double-down on me," Helou said.
"He's a real good player," said Loyola's Brendan Moynihan, whose job it was to defend Helou. "He knows how to turn you, and he knows right when the pressure comes to get it to a teammate on the outside."
Calvert Hall's Arny Warren scored three goals.
"We just kept feeding Mike the ball, and he kept putting it in," said Warren. "That was our game plan, and we stuck to it."
Loyola Coach Keith Schertle, a winner of all 11 MIAA A Conference swimming titles, and 14 straight dating back to the days of the old MSA, with the Dons, said of the third quarter, "I just feel as though I must do a better job getting through to them."
"We played them as well as anyone has, especially in the first half, but they're a great team," Schertle said. "If we get by St. Joe in the playoffs on [on Saturday,] we'll get another shot at them."
Anderson still sees room for improvement in the Cardinals.
"They scored nine goals on us, and that's too many," said Anderson. "We still have a lot of work to do."
Sounds like a guy who wants to stay unbeaten for a long time.
SCORING
LOY 1 4 1 3 9
CH 1 5 6 3 15
Calvert Hall: Helou (7); Arny Warren (3); Ben Brown, David Roberts, Archie Warren, Matt Kolb, Mike Brown
Loyola: Charlie Waesch (3), TylerThein (2), Tyler Elfert, Paul McGrath, Hugh Davison, Adam Shaw
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