SHUHEI MATSUO
Sports Editor
David Hasselhoff showed up to Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool on Saturday, hoping to see his nephew Nick Corjon, a senior attacker, and the fifth-ranked Pepperdine men’s water polo team sink No-8 Long Beach State. However, the Waves were the ones who needed help from the legendary “Baywatch” lifeguard when they suffered a 7-5 upset by the lower-ranked team.
With this loss, No.-5 Pepperdine’s perfect record at home for this campaign ended at four. The Waves bounced back in the second game against California Baptist when they beat the non-ranked team 13-9.
After splitting the weekend action, Pepperdine is 22-7 overall and 1-4 in the MPSF conference.
During the first match, Pepperdine junior attacker Adam Hewko delivered the first goal, but the Waves lost control of the game and never regained their lead after three minutes into the first quarter.
Pepperdine showed the hope of winning when Hewko scored his third goal of the day at 4:13 left in the third quarter to make it down 4-3. Junior Mat MacDonell was ejected for a penalty soon after, which gave two easy goals for the 49ers to increase their lead by three at 6-3.
Although MacDonell was excluded from just that game, Pepperdine was already missing three key players – sophomore JP MacDonell and freshmen Caleb Hamilton and Andrew Milkovich – due to the suspension that was given to them by the MPSF committee for excessive physical contacts during the Stanford match Oct. 29. While the sophomore attacker was suspended for one game (vs. Long Beach), the freshmen players were not allowed to play both of Saturday’s matches.
JP MacDonell started Saturday’s second game against Cal Baptist and scored four goals to lead the team’s offense with sophomore attacker Clayton Snyder, who also shook the net four times in the match. JP MacDonell, who sat in the stands during the first game, said it was tough not being able to compete for a game.
“It was one of the first times I’ve seen it from another perspective, like sitting in the stands,” he said. “And it was just tough not to be there for my team to help them.”
He also said it was a good experience because he learned that he needs to have more control and play more humbly.
Players are not the only ones who can be ejected from a game. Head Coach Jack Kocur received a red card and was excluded from Saturday’s first match with two minutes remaining. He had to sit out for the game against Cal Baptist.
“It was just miscommunication,” he said.
Kocur also said he was very displeased with his team’s performance in the game against Long Beach.
“I think their guys played well as a team, and that’s been our issue all year long,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do next week.”
Pepperdine is back in action when it travels to Irvine and plays UC Irvine on Friday at 7 p.m. All the suspended members of the team will be back in this match. The Waves will come back to Malibu and host Concordia at 11 a.m. and UC San Diego at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
11-08-2007
