The Gannon University women’s water polo team saw its season get off to a rough start over the weekend, but the Knights did have a few individual highlights.
Gannon fell 18-5 to Harvard and 17-3 to Wagner on Saturday, then dropped two close contests Sunday – 8-6 to Saint Francis of Pennsylvania and 12-10 to Siena.
Junior Kelly Fehr notched the first goal of the season for Gannon with 4 minutes, 50 seconds to play in the first quarter to cut the Harvard (6-0) lead to 2-1. One minute later, Ruh tied the game 2-2 with her first tally of the year.
Harvard ripped off the next three goals to take a 5-2 lead before Gannon freshman Nicole Wiemken added her first goal of the 2019 season to cut into the Crimson lead.
Harvard fired back and took control of the game with four straight goals to make it 9-3. Junior Lauren Rinderle scored the last goal of the opening half at the 2:04 mark for Gannon to make the score 9-4 at the half.
Harvard scored the next eight goals in the second half to take a commanding 18-4 lead. Ruh scored her second goal of the contest for the Knights late in the fourth quarter.
In Saturday’s second game of the tournament, Gannon was no match for Wagner. The Seahawks (6-4), fresh off a 23-3 rout of Saint Francis earlier in the day, held an 8-1 lead at intermission and didn’t look back in the second half.
In Sunday’s first game, Saint Francis (3-4) outscored Gannon 5-3 in the second half, and that proved to be the difference.
Rinderle scored the first goal to give the Knights an early lead. Sophomore Julia Kredinger scored the last goal of the first quarter to tie the game at 2-2.
Fehr scored her second goal of the season to give Gannon its last lead of the game at 4-3. Saint Francis scored the next two goals to move in front.
Sophomore Sydney Fountain tallied her first goal of the season in the second half for Gannon to tie the game at 5-5.
However, from that point the Red Flash outscored the Knights 3-1 to end the game.
A late fourth-quarter run and a four-goal performance from Fountain wasn’t enough for Gannon in its final tournament loss to Siena.
Fountain recorded two goals in the first quarter, one which tied the game at 2-2 and a later goal tied the score at 4-4.
Kredinger notched a late second-quarter goal to bring the Knights to within two going into the half.
Wiemken found the back of the net in the third quarter to stop a Siena run and make the score 10-6 in favor of the Saints.
Gannon came out hot in the fourth quarter and fired off three straight goals to cut the deficit to 11-9.
These three goals came from Fountain, Fehr and Rinderle.
However, Siena gave itself just enough of a lead that a Kredinger goal with 22 seconds left in the game was not enough for Gannon.
The Knights are in action next at the Mercyhurst Invitational in Erie.
They will take on VMI at 12:30 p.m. Saturday and then face Iona at 7 p.m. that night before battling La Salle at 9:15 a.m. Sunday and Bucknell at 4:45 p.m. Sunday.

MICHAEL MARSICO
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