SHUHEI MATSUO
Assistant Sports Editor
After capturing second place at the season-opening Triton Invitational in San Diego on Sept. 3, Pepperdine traveled again Saturday and played against cross-town rival Loyola Marymount. However, the sixth-ranked Waves fell to the No.-9 Lions, 9-7, at the Burns Recreation and Aquatics Center in Los Angeles.
LMU used a 6-on-5 advantage to score the first goal of the match at the 3:44 mark. Pepperdine answered when senior Doug Mann netted the first of his three goals in the game with 1:54 remaining in the period.
The Waves took their first lead of the game as Mann scored at the 5:12 mark of the second quarter. The lead was short-lived as the Lions recorded their second man-advantage goal quickly after.
Freshman Sam Busby notched his only goal of the afternoon at the two-minute mark and again LMU answered on the ensuing possession. Both teams would tack on a goal with less than a minute remaining in the half.
The Lions scored the only two goals of the third period and led by as many as four, 9-5, with fewer than three minutes remaining. Freshman JP MacDonell and Mann added two more goals at the end, but the Lions survived in the water.
Despite the loss to a lower-ranked team, junior Dorian Beaney expressed a positive attitude.
“Saturday’s game was kind of a learning experience for us,” he said. “We have a really young team so even though we lost, it gives us some room to improve.”
Asked about the main reasons for the weekend’s loss, Beaney said LMU had a strong goalie.
“They also capitalized on our inexperienced team,” he said.
With four of the five starters from last season redshirting, this year’s crew is full of youth and vitality. So the team’s long-term goal for the season is to gain more experience for next season when all the star players come back, Beaney said.
He also said the team is not trying to win a national championship but wants to finish in the Top 5.
“When it comes to next year, we’ll have our huge squad back so we can aim to win the national championship,” Beaney said.
This weekend, Pepperdine will travel to Stanford to compete in the NorCal Tournament.
09-14-2006
