SARAH DAUGHERTY/Staff Photographer
SHUHEI MATSUO
Sports Editor
With one more week left in the regular season, the sixth-ranked Pepperdine men’s water polo team dropped a close match against rival No.-5 UC Irvine in Irvine last night with an 8-7 decision. However, the Waves collected two home victories from Concordia (score: 9-8) and No.-14 UC San Diego (22-9) today at Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool.
Going 2-1 this weekend, Pepperdine improved to 24-8 overall this season.
Junior Adam Hewko led the team in the last night’s game against UCI, but the Anteaters’ leading scorer Colin Mellow, who also had four goals in the match, delivered the game-winning shot with 1:16 left in the game.
Despite dropping a close match, Head Coach Jack Kocur said he is pleased with the way the team played.
“We played well but just didn’t get a ‘W’ at the end,” he said. “[The players] came out strong, and they kept the sprit alive.”
The Waves bounced back with two wins against lower-ranked teams today. Kocur said his team’s performance was great today.
“We really came out strong in both games,” he said. “The first game allowed a lot of younger players get some experience, and the second game allowed our guys to come back from last night’s close loss.”
During today’s first game against Concordia, freshman attacker Travis Gough led the offense with two goals while junior goalie Jack Curley shined defensively.
Curley said he was fired up in this game because he hadn’t been playing a lot lately. He also played in the match against UCSD.
“It was nice to get back in the water especially against [UCSD] that was in the final four last year,” Curley said. “It’s nice getting some competition and preparing myself for next year.”
Pepperdine will conclude its regular-season action next week when it faces UCLA and UC Santa Barbara.
Even though the team is already in the playoffs, next week’s matches are important because they could affect its seeding at the MPSF Championship, which starts Nov. 23.
“We’ll need some confidence and a big boost going into our last weekend,” Curley said.
The match against UCLA begins at noon Saturday in Los Angeles and the game against UCSB starts at 1 p.m. on Nov. 18 in Pepperdine’s home waters.
11-10-2007
