The Iona College men’s water polo staged a 11-10 comeback victory against Fordham University to take home the Judge Cup on Thursday night.

The Judge Cup is a unique game between Iona and Fordham. Both teams have a strong history with each other and yesterday’s game kept it alive.

“We’ve had a really long history with some good games against Fordham,” head coach Brian Kelly said. “It’s been a good rivalry through the years.”

Shots were just wide or clinging off of the posts, missing the net by inches. At some point in the game, luck became a factor for the Gaels.

“If it did [become a factor], I’ll take it,” Kelly said. “Luck is always what you make of it.”

The match was close throughout its entirety, having a one-goal difference at the end of each quarter. Fordham’s defense performed well, hindering the attack and shots on target from the Gaels.

“They’re a good team,” Kelly said. “They blocked some shots and did a good job of stealing the ball from us.”

Iona was down 9-5 to the Rams and looked to be heading into the losing column. However, the Gaels stood strong and shut out the bombard of attacks Fordham sent their way.

“We recovered really well,” Kelly said. “Credit to [the team], they buckled down when they needed to.”

This game proved that Iona could pull through and perform in high pressure situations to produce results. Kelly wants his team to continue to learn from the good and bad of each game they play.

“We have to keep learning what we’re good at and correct what we’re bad at,” Kelly said. “It has to be ‘adjust to our mistakes we played in the last game and not do them again.’ Once we start becoming that team, we’re going to be very good.”

The Gaels ended the match on a great note when sophomore Quinn Lloyd buried the game winning goal, resulting in a thunderous cheer from the crowd.

“We needed to win like this,” Kelly said. “We’ve had too many we let slip when we had chances to close the game. It was nice to get this win.”

Iona’s next game is at MIT on Oct. 28. The Gaels hope to string together a few wins and go into the end of the season on a positive note.

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