In front of a boisterous home crowd, the No. 8 UCSB men’s water polo team defeated No. 9 UC Irvine, 13-12, in sudden-victory overtime on Saturday afternoon at Campus Pool. Senior driver Daniel Natalizio scored the game-winner two minutes and 33 seconds into the third overtime period giving the Gauchos their third consecutive win over the Anteaters this season.
With the victory, UCSB improves to 11-7 overall on the season while UC Irvine falls to 6-8. The Gauchos have posted a 3-1 record against the Anteaters this season, including a 14-12 win on Oct. 5 in the teams’ official Mountain Pacific Sports Federation game.
UCSB jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first quarter behind two goals from sophomore Milos Golic. Irvine’s Max Parrague got the Anteaters on the board with 1:27 to play in the first cutting the Gaucho advantage to 2-1. Santa Barbara had the final say though, as Miles Price scored during a six-on-five opportunity with 17 seconds in the quarter to stretch the Gaucho lead to 3-1.
After giving up a goal to Griffin Lerman in the first 30 seconds of the second quarter, UCSB went on a four-goal run to take a 7-2 lead with 50 seconds to play in the first half. Parrague’s second of the game during a man-up advantage cut the UCSB lead to 7-3 at halftime.
Down, but not out, UC Irvine rebounded in the third quarter and outscored UCSB 4-1 behind a pair of Lerman goals to trail by just one at 8-7 after three quarters. A little over three and a half minutes into the fourth, the Anteaters were able to tie the game for the first time with a goal from Greg Enloe and then took the lead at 9-8 on Lerman’s fourth goal of the game during a six-on-five advantage.
With 1:28 to play in regulation time, Natalizio tied the game at 9-9 with a six-on-five goal. Irvine responded with a man-up goal of its own to recapture the lead with 46 seconds to play. Luckily for UCSB, Sean Castillo found the back of the net with just 13 seconds on the clock to tie the game up at 10-10 and send the teams into overtime.
Golic scored the lone goal of the first of two three-minute overtime periods with a five-meter penalty shot to put the Gauchos on top 11-10. With just one second on the clock in the first overtime, Irvine drew an ejection and they were able to capitalize on the advantage 16 seconds into the next overtime period, tying the game at 11-all.
UCSB went ahead 12-11 on Stefan Partelow’s second goal of the game during a man-up counterattack with 1:11 to play, but the Anteaters deadlocked the game during the last minute when Lerman was fouled outside the five-meter and picked up the ball and shot, scoring UCI’s 12th goal and sending the contest into sudden victory overtime.
Irvine won the sprint to open the third overtime period, but its first shot was knocked down by goalie Michael Robinson. UCSB was able to get several shots off, but one sailed over the cage and two were deflected by Anteater goalie Matt Johnson. Two minutes and 33 seconds into the sudden victory period, Natalizio scored on a backhand from outside the Irvine goal’s right post giving the Gauchos the 13-12 victory.
Irvine’s Griffin Lerman led all players with five goals while Milos Golic led the Gauchos with four. Goalkeeper Michael Robinson tied his career-high of 14 saves in the win.
UC Santa Barbara will be back in action on Friday, Oct. 24 when they host UC San Diego for a non-conference match-up at the Gauchos’ very own Campus Pool. Game time is set for 3 p.m. and admission, as always, is free to UCSB water polo home contests.
UC Santa Barbara 13, UC Irvine 12
1 2 3 4 OT1 OT2 SV Final UCI 1 2 4 3 0 2 0 12 UCSB 3 4 1 2 1 1 1 13
UCI Goals: Griffin Lerman 5, Max Parrague 2, Greg Enloe 2, James Frank 1, Jesse Hatch 1, Thomas Kruip 1.
UCI Goalie Saves: Matt Johnson 14.
UCSB Goals: Milos Golic 4, Stefan Partelow 2, Jesse Tootell 2, Daniel Natalizio 2, Noah Smith 1, Miles Price 1, Sean Castillo 1.
UCSB Goalie Saves: Michael Robinson 14.
