Garret Wait
Sports Assistant
The Pepperdine men’s water polo team’s up and down season continued Saturday against 11th-ranked Loyola Marymount University.
The Waves lost to LMU at the Burns Recreation and Aquatic Center 12-9 to bring their season record to 4-4.
Pepperdine and LMU played a tough defensive battle in the first quarter, each scoring once on the other team’s goalie. However, the Lions proceeded to dominate the rest of the half as they outscored the Waves five to two in the second quarter to make the score at the half 6-3.
The Waves were down as much as 8-4 during the third quarter but fought hard to get the score back to 8-8 on freshman Adam Hewko’s goal with 6:30 remaining in the final period.
However, LMU took the lead for good on Ben Easton’s goal with about five minutes remaining and held on for the three-goal victory.
The win improved LMU’s record to 8-2 on the season, while the sixth-ranked Waves have won only once in their last four matches.
Freshmen Grant Miller, Matt Digges and Matt MacDonell each scored twice for the Waves while seniors Josh Acosta and Tom Jasper each added a goal.
Hewko was the only other scorer for the Waves.
“We could have played better as a team,” Hewko said. “We came back on them in the fourth quarter, but they just had too much momentum and ended up winning.”
As goalie, freshman Robbie Miller collected four saves for Pepperdine while LMU’s goalie Ian Elliott managed to save six shots from entering the net.
Two Lions scored three times in the match as seven total LMU players notched goals. Goalscorers for LMU were Tyler Swanson, Endre Rex-Kiss, Nick Oster, Scott Marshall, Sean Wimer, Matt Reynolds and Easton.
Through eight games this year, Acosta leads the team with 15 goals, with Doug Mann and MacDonell tied behind him with nine goals each. Pepperdine has outscored its opponents 69-67 this year.
The freshmen for Pepperdine have all made a major contribution for Head Coach Terry Schroeder, despite their inexperience; five of the top seven goalscorers this year are first-year players for the Waves.
The other players on the team had no idea these youngsters could play this well.
“I didn’t expect them to make this kind of impact until I saw them play the first time,” sophomore Matt Hahn said. “But then I watched them, and I knew they could definitely play.”
The team is tied for seventh with Long Beach State in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in goals per game and goals allowed per game. The Waves average 8.25 goals per contest and are allowing goals at a 6.88 per game clip.
The Waves have had trouble in the doldrums of the second and third quarters as their opponents outscored them nearly two to one.
The Waves lead their opponents in production during the first and fourth periods of their matches.
All four of Pepperdine’s losses have come against ranked opponents, while two of their wins have come against teams in the top 20.
The Waves may see a dip in their national ranking of sixth because of their first stretch of two losses in a row.
Beginning Saturday, Oct. 2, the Waves will compete at the NorCal Tournament at the University of the Pacific pool in Stockton, Calif. Pepperdine will have another chance to beat their rival LMU when the two teams meet again in the first round of the tournament.
At the NorCal Tournament, the Waves will face many of the same teams they faced at the SoCal Tournament, including No.1 University of Southern California, No. 4 UCLA and No. 2 Stanford University.
“We put in a lot of hard work this week,” Hahn said. “We’re trying to mesh and play a lot better as a team.”
Other teams in the tournament include host University of the Pacific; University of Redlands; Air Force Academy; Cal Baptist University; Naval Academy; Santa Clara University; University of California, Davis; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of California, Santa Barbara; Princeton University; University of California, San Diego; St. Francis University; and third-ranked University of California, Berkeley.
The Waves will begin the tournament in the Pacific Division, playing at the UOP Championship pool beginning at 11:40 a.m.
09-30-2004