DANIELLA BOSIO
Assistant Sports Editor
The No.-5 Pepperdine men’s water polo team split the weekend in the Bay area with an 8-6 win over No.-2 Cal Berkeley and an 11-9 loss against No.-3 Stanford. The Waves were able to increase their record to 15-7 on the season and 2-2 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play.
The Waves played their first match of the weekend on Saturday against Cal at Spieker Aquatics Complex. The Bears started the match soundly as they recorded the first goal of the game with 6:34 in the first period from freshman Shea Buckner.
The Waves responded immediately by scoring four goals in the first period. Sophomore Matt Digges scored two of the goals, and sophomore Grant Miller and redshirt freshman Chris Harding-Brown tallied one goal a piece.
Even though Cal outscored Pepperdine 2-1 in both the second and third periods with goals from juniors Andrija Vasiljevic and Shea Buckner and sophomores Mike Hayes and Michael Sharf, the Waves were still able to maintain the lead in the match.
Cal brought the game within one point twice in the match but was never able to take the lead from the Waves. The Bears scored with with 3:01 left in the third period on a goal by Hayes off a pass from junior captain Brian Bacharach to make the score 6-5 still in favor of the Waves. The Waves capitalized on an opportunity early in the fourth stanza to increase the lead to 7-5. With 2:57 left in the match, Vasiljevic scored his second goal of the game to bring the Bears within one.
Senior Jesse Smith scored the winning goal for the Waves on a four-meter shot at the 2:43 mark of the fourth period.
Senior Ben Tait held strong in the net for the Waves as he recorded 14 saves, and Cal goalie Nate Bennett recorded eight saves.
“I thought we played really well against Cal,” Digges said. “We played as a team
and kept our intensity up the whole game. We didn’t let our mistakes get us down.”
Miller agreed that the team played well against Cal and said he felt that the team really came together.
“The key to beating Cal was that we came together as a team and played as one,” Miller said. “We played very well this weekend even though we went 1-1.”
After defeating Cal on Saturday, the Waves hoped to repeat the winning streak against top-five ranked teams by defeating Stanford on Sunday, but fell short in the fourth period. The Waves were led by Smith, who recorded six goals in the match alone. Digges scored twice, while redshirt sophomore Tom Strickland and freshman Matt MacDonell scored one goal each.
The Waves started the game with excitement and speed as they scored in the first 32 seconds of the match. Stanford answered back by the end of the first period and secured the lead at 3-2. Stanford took control of the second period and scored three goals to make the score 6-4 at the half. The excitement of the match built in the third and fourth stanzas as the Waves and Stanford rallied back and forth all the way until the final moments of the match.
The Waves played a solid third period with a 3-1 run against Stanford, leaving the game tied at seven going into the fourth period. Cardinal senior Peter Varellas scored his fourth goal of the match in the opening minute of the fourth.
Pepperdine responded with a goal from Digges. Junior Tyler Drake scored 27 seconds later for Stanford to take the lead 9-8. Smith scored his sixth goal with 3:38 left in the match to tie the game at nine.
Redshirt sophomore Ryan Fortune and Varellas each scored a goal at the end of the fourth to clinch an 11-9 win for Stanford. Tait recorded five saves for the Waves, while sophomore Sandy Hohener tallied seven saves for the Cardinal.
“We just caught a lot of tough breaks,” Digges said. “Things seemed to be working in favor of Stanford on that day. We didn’t play our best for four whole quarters, and to win a game, you must play hard every minute of every quarter.”
Miller agreed with Digges.
“We played well against Stanford,” Miller said. “We just had some unlucky bounces.”
The Waves will return to action on Friday at noon when they take on Cal again at Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool. This game will mark the second meeting between these two teams this season. The Bears are 16-4 on the season and 2-1 in MPSF play.
Pepperdine is looking confident as it prepares for the last stretch of the season.
“Looking at the season as a whole, I think that we have been playing good, but we needto be playing great to reach our goal of winning the national championship,” Digges said.
“Playing good is OK, but we are working towards playing great, and once we play great on a regular basis, we will be unstoppable.”
11-03-2005