SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Upset-minded Santa Clara put together one of their best team performances of the season to give No. 6 Princeton all they could handle in Thursday's non-conference showdown at the Sullivan Aquatic Center.
The 19th-ranked Broncos tied the game late and seemed poised to have an opportunity to win in overtime before the unthinkable happened in the final seconds of regulation. With just seconds on the clock, Princeton keeper Kristof Kovacs made a save and promptly launched a shot towards the open goal on the opposite end of the pool. The shot found its mark and beat the clock with one second remaining to give the Tigers a 12-11 victory.
Santa Clara (8-11) made an incredible comeback bid to put themselves in position for the upset. Facing a 4-1 deficit at the start of the second quarter,
Jason Alietti found the back of net and
Riccardo De Simon scored twice to counter three goals on Princeton's side and make it a respectable 7-4 score at the half. The third quarter belonged to the Broncos with SCU outscoring the Tigers 5-3 in the period.
Charlie Engs scored back-to-back goals himself to quickly whittle the deficit to one goal, and the teams exchanged goals the rest of the period with
Julien Chow and
Dylan Hazen both denting the twine before
Darion Wang connected with De Simon in the final seconds to make it 10-9 Princeton at the end of the quarter.
Scoring was tough to come by for the bulk of the fourth quarter as both teams locked in defensively. The Tigers (18-3) finally struck first with 3:02 to go back up by two scores, but
Charlie Engs took advantage of a powerplay opportunity on the ensuing possession to log his third goal of the game and bring the Broncos back to within one at 11-10 with 2:17 remaining. In the final minute, SCU turned away another Princeton scoring attack and De Simon drew a penalty on the opposite end of the pool to set up a five-meter attempt for Imme van der Scaaf, who easily converted to tie the game at 11 with 32 seconds remaining in regulation.
The Broncos locked in on defense once again on Princeton's final possession with
Charlie Engs finding himself in perfect position to pick off a pass and allow the bench to call a timeout with less than 15 seconds remaining. SCU made the decision to pull the keeper and go all-in on trying to score before the end of regulation, and
Ashton Brown got a good look when he fired off a shot in the closing moments, but his shot was corralled and quickly thrown to the open net.
Engs finished with three goals, two assists and a steal while De Simon logged four goals, one assist and six steals.
Harrison Labrosse played all 32 minutes in the net where he finished with nine saves.
The Broncos will have a quick turnaround as they get set to host the 2026 Julian Fraser Memorial Tournament, which begins tomorrow (Friday) against Long Island University at 2:00 p.m. PT. SCU will also face No. 20 Brown and Iona over the three days of action at Sullivan Aquatic Center.
