MACK CARROLL/Staff Photographer
SHUHEI MATSUO
Sports Editor
The fifth-ranked Pepperdine water polo team won today’s home opener against No.-10 Loyola Marymount 11-9, after going 4-0 in the final quarter.
With this victory, the Waves improved to 12-3, while the Lions dropped to 5-7 for the season.
Despite a dramatic win, Head Coach Jack Kocur said he is “very disappointed” about his team’s performance against a lower-ranked squad.
“I’m happy with the team that we got a victory, but I’m very disappointed in the way we were putting things together,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
Echoing his coach, attacker Adam Hewko, who scored two goals in this game, said not all crew members were on the same page during almost the entire game.
“LMU is a team that keeps getting better and better,” the redshirt junior said. “They played well, and we didn’t play well. But we still came out with a win, so that’s positive.”
Within a minute into the game, LMU scored the first goal at 7:02. Although sophomore attacker JP MacDonell scored two goals in the first quarter, the Lions made a goal with one second left to lead by two after the first eight minutes.
There was not much action in the second quarter except freshman attacker Caleb Hamilton scoring one goal to reduce the deficit to just one.
The beginning of the second half brought many goals for both teams, but the Waves ended the third quarter down 7-9.
With eight more minutes to go, Pepperdine replaced goalie Jack Curley with sophomore Travis Stachowski who eventually shut down the Lions offense in the fourth quarter.
“As long as we didn’t give them any goals in the first part of the fourth quarter, we would have had the whole momentum going into the fourth quarter,” Stachowski said. “So it was very important to stop them in the first one minute of the quarter.”
Stachowski’s impressive four saves brought a major comeback to the team’s offense. After junior attacker Grant Miller and sophomore center Clayton Snyder each scored a goal to tie the match, Hamilton slammed the game-winning shot into the LMU’s net with 2:42 remaining. The freshman player said he was a little bit nervous to compete at home for the first time in his college career.
“There was a pretty big crowd,” Hamilton said. “I think we should have beat them by a few more goals, but it was a great game. It was really fun.”
With 1:45 to go, MacDonell scored another goal to end the impressive comeback by Pepperdine.
The Waves will play another game today at 4:30 p.m. against Golden West.
09-29-2007
