Ladue Water Polo Gets By Rival Burroughs, 11-5

Ladue’s water polo team has something going this year. Wednesday, they knocked off John Burroughs 11-5 to run the record to 8-4 this season.

Chris Beckman is their big goal-getter. He scored 4 times in the match with Burroughs, and has 10 goals, 9 assists this season.

The Rams ran off with a 9-0 lead, and the Bombers only broke the scoreless drought when Will Nickerson scored with 4 minutes left in the third quarter.

In the fourth, with the game pretty much in hand, the Bombers came up with 4 goals.

More water polo pictures on the Ladue-Frontenac Facebook page.

Beckman gives full credit to Burroughs. “They are a good team, they have some  2 meters and they can play fast,” said Ladue’s goal-getter.

“This season has been good for us. We just came off a big win in the Founder’s Cup and things are looking good for us,” said Beckman.

Scoring was spread around. Collin Ladd scored 3 times for Ladue. Solo goals went to Nathan Thompson, Tim Carr. Joe Milton and Mario Stoyanov.

“We did a nice job today. We were 6 for 7 on our power play opportunities. That is a big part of our game and we make it a big part to earn those, then score on them,” said coach Corey Miller in his 8th year at the controls.

Ladue gets to get into the tank with the big boys.

They don’t mind playing powerful teams like SLUH and DeSmet. ”We like it that way. We don’t get to see them as much as we have in past years. With the new conference alignment (Suburban Central), things have changed. We like seeing those guys even if it means some close games and some loses in the season.

It makes us a lot better when we get to play the tougher teams.”

Burroughs coach Steve Stiffelman is rebuilding with lots of freshmen and sophomores on the squad. He can’t dip into his bench very much.

“We had a lot of great shots in this game, but unfortunately, we hit the bar a lot more than we hit the net. A lot more net, a little less bar and we could have been a lot closer,” he said.

Numerous shots did ding the upright, with Jimmy Duncan playing goalkeeper for Ladue. He did an excellent job of denying Burroughs scoring opportunities.

Stiffelman likes his net-minder junior Daniel Diemer. He was all district last year. “He gave us a good game,” said the Burroughs coach.