By Erica Sigman
Staff Writer
The Waves drowned the Loyola Marymount Lions 9-2 Saturday at the Burns Recreation and Aquatics Center. The No. 3-ranked Waves improved their overall record to 6-1 and gave the No. 8-ranked Lions a losing record of 5-6.
Pepperdine shut out LMU in the second half with five unanswered goals to secure the victory. With six different Pepperdine men contributing to the score and an unstoppable defense, Loyola did not stand a chance.
“I felt like the guys were more relaxed,” assistant coach Jack Kocur said. “They weren’t uptight like last year. We showed up DANIEL JOHNSON/PHOTO EDITOR
with more confidence.”
The Waves came out strong with two goals by junior utility man Jesse Smith. Loyola answered with one goal to end the first quarter.
The second quarter was much like the first, with two back-to-back Pepperdine goals scored by senior two-meter man Michael Hausmann, who totaled in with a career-high four goals.
“We had very strong team defense,” Hausmann said. “We also had a very strong team counter attack.”
At the close of the first half, the Lions were down 4-2 and the Waves were conscious of the fact that Loyola was still very much in the game.
Pepperdine came out strong and ready to win in the second half with junior driver Josh Acosta scoring within the first two minutes.
The Waves led a strong attack with two goals from Hausmann and a goal each from junior two-meter man Morgan Matthies and junior two-meter guard France Denk.
While Pepperdine’s offense was attacking hard, their defense stepped up the intensity by shutting down the Lions and leaving them scoreless in the second half.
Loyola had 12, 6-5 opportunities and the Waves shut down all except one.
“I thought they played well and drew a lot of kick outs,” Hausmann said. “But we had pretty good defense to keep them from scoring. They weren’t able to complete their 6-5 opportunities.”
Both goalkeepers were able to display their skills with five saves by junior Ben Tait and six saves by freshman Michael Lee.
Overall the game looked more like fun time in the pool rather than a tough contest.
“The game turned into a fun environment,” Kocur said. “It was good to see smiling faces.”
The Waves will travel to Northern California this weekend to compete in the NorCal Tournament. The coaching staff expresses anxiety for their upcoming games.
“We’re preparing in the same way that we did for the Southern Cal tournament,” Kocur said. “We might get to play Stanford who is the No. 2-ranked team. It’ll put us in a good spot to compete for No. 1.”
The players expressed anxiety as well, but also showed a strong sense of confidence.
“I feel excited about playing Stanford at their pool, with their crowd,” Hausmann said. “They’ll have a little extra something on us. It’ll be a good game.”
The Waves have set the bar higher for this tournament.
They’ve achieved their goal to be ranked within the top four in the nation, but now they strive for the top two.
“We want to get right up there at the top,” Hausmann said. “We don’t want to meet Cal in the third place game again, we want to be in the championship game.”
Their first contest will be against the UC Davis Aggies Saturday at 7:30 a.m
October 02, 2003