“Don’t shoot, Alex; please don’t shoot,” were the only thoughts going through my mind. Just as I looked away for a second, I saw the ball flying towards the other goal, and to the amazement of everyone on the bench (and in the stands), it went in!

The entire bench went crazy—we couldn’t believe that our goalie had just scored. I thought for sure that the game was just about wrapped up, since there were only 18 seconds remaining.

But Iona’s relentlessness paid off, and the Gaels pushed down the pool and scored only 10 seconds later. Talk about a letdown.

In the first sudden-death period, as the shot clock was winding down, junior Kevin DiSilvestro passed the ball over to Voith in front of the goal in a last-ditch attempt to make something out of a possession that seemed to be amounting to nothing.

Voith went up to grab the ball and was pulled down by the opposing player, and the referee awarded our team with a penalty shot. The opposing coach went absolutely ballistic, screaming, “A five-meter? You’re going to give him a five-meter for THAT?”

The referee gave the coach a red card, and a security officer came down and escorted him out of the pool. Since Iona didn’t travel with an assistant coach, its bus driver came down and took over coaching duties for the remainder of the game.

In water polo, a penalty shot is similar to those in soccer, where a player is given the chance to take a undefended shot from a line only five meters away from the goal.

I have a custom of swimming to the other side of the pool and facing our goalkeeper when one of my teammates shoots a penalty shot. Maybe it’s superstition, but for whatever reason, I just cannot watch my team take penalty shots.

Voith lined up in front of the cage with the ball, and with my back to him, I heard the referee’s whistle. Then a loud clink. Iron. No goal.

The first sudden death ended with the same score with which it had begun. The second period of sudden death, which was the fourth overtime period of the game, started just as uneventfully as the last had finished. With just under a minute remaining, an Iona player made a seemingly harmless pass into a player in front of the cage, and…I saw the shot hit the netting in the back of the goal, and my mind just went blank.

We had lost. Emotionless, we shook hands with the other team, and I found myself just walking around the deck, as if I was waiting to start the next quarter of play. It couldn’t believe that it was over, just like that.

—Staff writer Evan J. Zepfel can be reached at ezepfel@fas.harvard.edu.