After losing two games in a row, the Iona men’s water polo team took a trip to California to compete in the Concordia Invitational.

Before the invitational, the Gaels played against Occidental College in Los Angeles. From the beginning of the game, the Maroon and Gold absolutely dominated Occidental with five goals in the first quarter on their way to a 20-9 victory.

Altogether, 13 different players scored for the Gaels.  Iona’s attack was led by hat tricks from freshman Tyler Mancuso and sophomore Lee Stiles, while senior Matt Joslyn, freshman Nicholas Joslyn and sophomore Matthew Stelnicki also found the net twice.

The next day, the Gaels had a doubleheader against Fresno Pacific and no. 10 Concordia at the Concordia Invitational in Huntington Beach.

In the first game, Iona found themselves down 6-2 in the first quarter, but slowly started to come back.  In the third quarter, Iona took a 9-8 lead and never looked back in a 12-11 victory.

Senior Cameron Hudson and Mancuso both had three goal games and sophomore Stefen Hill had 12 saves in goal in the victory.

The Gaels then went into the nightcap to face the tenth best team in the nation in Concordia.

Once again, Iona found themselves down early, this time by a 5-1 score after eight minutes of play.

But the Maroon and Gold clawed their way back into the game, and made the game 11-7 after three quarters.

In the final quarter of play, Iona scored three times but had a goal negated in the final seconds to prevent overtime, resulting in an 11-10 victory for the Eagles.

Leading the Gaels were Hudson, who recorded his second hat trick of the day, and Hill, who once again saved 12 shots.

In their final game in California, the Gaels once again had a nationally ranked side to face, this time no. 20 Cal Baptist.

The Gaels put up a valiant effort, tying the Lancers at seven after three quarters of play, but Cal Baptist was able to defeat Iona in the fourth quarter on a late goal to win 11-10.

Hudson kept up his fantastic road trip with a four-goal effort, while Hill posted another solid outing with eight saves.

To close out their trip to California, the Gaels headed to La Verne and had another doubleheader, this time against La Verne and Whittier.

Led by a strong four-goal effort in the first quarter, Iona was able to win the first game of the doubleheader 11-9.  The Gaels offense featured hat tricks from both Stiles and freshman Jake Lloyd while Hill recorded eight saves in the win.

In the nightcap, Lloyd took over the game, scoring four goals to lead the Gaels offense to a 9-6 win.

Freshman Kyle Elmore was able to score twice more for the Maroon and Gold, while Hill made six saves to solidify his spot for the Northern Division Defensive Player of the Week award.

After the trip to California ended, the Gaels got back to play in Northern Division play, and headed to New London, CT to take on Brown.

Unfortunately for Iona, the Gaels did not get off to a strong start against Brown. After trailing by two goals in the first quarter, Brown took charge, scoring eight times to win 13-6.

Iona had two goal efforts from Hudson and Lloyd, while Joslyn and junior Kristian Bocage were able to round out the scoring for the Maroon and Gold.

The Gaels will now finish off their regular season campaign against Connecticut College before competing in the Northern Division Championship starting on Nov. 4.