Pepperdine takes third at crucial SoCal tournament thanks to a last-minute win over UC Berkeley.
By Erica Sigman
Staff Writer
The Pepperdine men’s water polo team bounced back this weekend, after an upsetting loss to University of Southern California, to devastate the No. 3-ranked University of California Berkeley Golden Bears in triple overtime.
The No. 4 Waves competed in the Southern California Tournament hosted by UC Irvine, closing the weekend with an overall 5-1 record.
After defeating No. 5 ranked UCLA 9-6 and Cal Baptist University 15-7 Saturday, the Waves experienced their first loss of the season to No. 1 ranked USC 9-7 Sunday morning.
Later in the evening, Pepperdine redeemed itself by winning a hard fought victory against Cal, beating them 9-8 in sudden death overtime thanks to two crucial last-minute goals by freshman driver Garrit Barth.
Pepperdine met up with Cal and showed a great display of strength and stamina. Throughout the whole game, both teams were within one goal of each other with the lead shifting from one team to the other.
Barth stepped up for the Waves late, scoring the goal to tie the game and send it into overtime. In water polo, overtime consists of two, three-minute periods. If no one has a lead, overtime goes into sudden death.
“It was a good game,” Hausmann said. “We had a little trouble finishing our shots.”
The score went unchanged for the first six minutes of overtime. After 5:40 of sudden death play, Barth scored on a 6-5 possession to ensure the Waves an upset.
“Garrit really stepped up,” Schroeder said. “He had a couple of huge goals. A performance like that hopefully gave him a lot of confidence as well as our team.”
Cal will prove to be a major obstacle during the season.
“Cal’s a top four team,” Hausmann said. “Hopefully we can distance ourselves from them. I think we can do well against them the next time.”
According to players and coaches, the reason for the victorious outcome was no doubt Pepperdine’s endurance and will to win.
“I think our endurance was a lot better than Cal’s,” Ashby said. “We’re a stronger team mentally and physically.”
Facing UCLA in their first match of the weekend, the Waves, who had beaten the Bruins earlier in the season, got into the pool with no preconceptions about their opponent.
“We tried to approach it like it was our first time playing them,” Head Coach Terry Schroeder said. “We were concerned. It was a big game.”
The players seemed very confident due to recent contests with the Bruins.
“We were very confident and ready to win again,” senior driver John Ashby said.
Fellow teammates agreed.
“I think we went into it with some confidence because we prepared well for them,” senior two-meter man Michael Hausmann said. “We knew what they were going to do.”
Junior two-meter guard Jordan Keitel led the Waves with three goals and teammates, junior two-meter man Morgan Matthies and junior utility man Jesse Smith were close behind with two goals a piece.
It was a close contest for three quarters, with a tied game at 5-5 going into the fourth quarter. However, Matthies and Keitel scored two back-to-back goals to pull away at the end of the game.
At 9:20 p.m. Saturday, the Waves came up with an easy win against Cal Baptist University.
Smith led the attack with three goals for Pepperdine and overall, the Waves showed impressive depth with nine of their players contributing to the final score.
Sunday proved to be more of a struggle for the Waves, battling two of the nation’s top ranked teams.
Pepperdine opened the day at 9:10 in the morning against the Trojans. USC attacked early in the game, outscoring the Waves in the first quarter 4-1.
“We had a slow start,” Ashby said.
The Waves fought hard in the third quarter with junior two-meter guard France Denk and Smith scoring back-to-back goals to come within one goal of USC, putting the score at 7-6.
Although Pepperdine pushed hard, USC pushed even harder scoring two goals at the end of the third quarter to ensure a Trojan victory
“I think that the USC game was not our best effort,” Schroeder said. “We committed too many kick outs, giving USC too many 6-5 opportunities. We let their big shooters take over.”
The Waves are looking at their loss to USC as a learning opportunity for the next match against the Trojans.
“We have to get a little more prepared,” Schroeder said. “We’re going to have to create opportunities for ourselves on the counter attack and our defense needs to pick it up.”
Players agree.
“I think that we had some let downs on defense because we didn’t do a good job communicating,” Hausmann said. “It could be a different game next time with some adjustments.”
The Waves travel to Los Angeles on Saturday to play the Loyola Marymount Lions at noon.
While Loyola is not one of the nation’s top five teams, they will still be a tough team to beat.
“They beat us last year and they should’ve beat Cal this weekend,” Schroeder said. “We have to be ready.”
September 25, 2003