It might as well have been an empty goal last week for Sam Mickelson. The Boone senior put on a shooting performance for the ages against University. An astounding 20 goals scored to set the Braves school record. Despite the eye popping number Mickelson is taking it all in stride.

“I just started playing,” Mickelson said. “Once I got up to eight or nine goals they told me to keep going, so that’s what I did.”

“I really wanted to show him that he could do it,” Boone water polo head coach Michael Martinac said. “I’ve always said that I know he can score as many times as he wants. That game he just had an opportunity and he started scoring a lot, so I just said keep going, and we’ll see what we get, and he got to 20.”

That mark of 20 is 13 more goals than his season average. And as the team's leading scorer and captain Coach Martinac hopes Mickelson can continue this strong play down the stretch.

“We need him to play at his best to win big games and for us to be really successful he has to be confident to go do that every single time,” Martinac said.

“It gives me confidence in myself that I can actually score that much and be a leader,” the senior said.

A team guy first to the core Mickelson says he started to feel bad when the goals started to pile up, but he was involved in other aspects of the Braves 27-12 win. He had 15 steals and 4 assists.

“I don’t like to be a ball hog,” he said. “I want to give all my teammates a chance to have their time.

But as he reflects on last week, with a big smile on his face, Sam does say he hopes no one ever breaks his record.