CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's water polo team trailed top-ranked Redlands 8-7 at the midway point of overtime, but bounced back with 6-on-5 goals from Thomas Walker and Nick Kennedy to take a 9-8 win over the Bulldogs Saturday at Axelrood Pool. 

The win was an important one for the Stags, who stay in the hunt for the SCIAC regular season title by improving to 13-9 overall and 5-2 in the SCIAC, moving within one game of first. Redlands falls to 10-11 overall and 6-1 in the SCIAC after suffering its first conference loss of the season. 

Redlands went ahead 8-7 in the first three-minute overtime session on a goal from Dean Moody, but the Stags were able to take advantage of a pair of Bulldog exclusions in the second session to get the comeback win. Walker knotted the score with his fourth of the game with 2:24 to go to make the score 8-8, and after the Stags earned a stop, Luke (Bear) Weigle drew his ninth exclusion of the game, and Kennedy scored with 1:14 left to put CMS ahead to stay. 

Jack Bryant came up with a steal on the next Redlands possession, and took a shot at the end of the shot clock that was saved over the end line by Roberto Barrera with 24 seconds to go, which kept possession with the Stags with the shot clock off. CMS was able to then run out the clock on its final possession to come away with the hard fought win. 

CMS trailed 4-3 in the third quarter, but Walker scored twice in the final minute to give the Stags a 5-4 lead heading into the fourth. CMS then went ahead 6-4 on a goal from Jeffrey Koretz with 4:31 to go. Redlands got the next two goals, before Koretz knotted the score on a blind backhand off a feed from Cristian Pang. 

Redlands tied it with 1:12 to go, and had a great chance to go ahead 30 seconds later, but Taylor made a big save on a transition chance from the Bulldogs to keep the game deadlocked. Kennedy tried for the win on a blind backhand that was saved by Barrera, and Redlands called timeout to go for the game-winner, but missed the cage as the clock expired. 

The first-half was exceptionally low scoring, as Weigle had the only goal of the first quarter, and the Bulldogs didn't get on the board until their last possession of the first half, making it a 2-1 CMS lead at the break. 

Jake Taylor finished with 13 saves for CMS, while Donovan Davidson had a team-high three assists. Taylor, Kennedy, Bryant and Auggie Aliaga each had two steals. Max Wagener had four goals for Redlands and Fedetov had three. 

CMS will be back in action on Wednesday night when it hosts Pomona-Pitzer for a 7 p.m. contest at Axelrood Pool, before traveling to Redlands on Saturday for a rematch with the Bulldogs.