The No. 7 UC Santa Barbara men’s water polo team dropped a pair of closely contested games on Sunday to finish eighth at the 2008 SoCal Tournament being hosted this weekend by Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount. On Sunday morning, UCSB fell 12-10 to No. 4 Pepperdine and later in the afternoon the Gauchos came up short, dropping the tournament’s seventh-place game in sudden victory to No. 10 UC San Diego at Pepperdine’s Raleigh Runnels Aquatic Center. With the losses, UCSB falls to 10-7 overall on the season.
In the first contest of the day against Pepperdine, UCSB got on the board first with Miles Price’s first goal of the day, but the Waves quickly took over as they tallied five straight points to hold a 5-1 advantage after the first quarter. In the second, UCSB outscored Pepperdine 4-3 behind two Sean Castillo goals to come within three points at 8-5 heading into halftime.
The teams each posted three goals apiece in the third period, all of UCSB’s goals coming from Milos Golic. With Pepperdine leading 11-8, the Gauchos had a lot of ground to make up in the fourth quarter and unfortunately were unable to do so, as they fell 12-10 to the Waves.
In the seventh-place contest against UC San Diego, the Tritons got on the scoreboard first with a goal from Jeff Hunt, but the Gauchos did not trail for long and in the last couple minutes of the quarter, Golic posted back-to-back goals giving UCSB a slight advantage at 2-1.
UCSD came back and tied the game at 3-3 heading into halftime, but UCSB outscored the Tritons 4-3 in the third quarter to lead 7-5 after 24 minutes of play. UCSD opened the forth quarter with two consecutive goals, tying the game at 7-7 with 6:21 to play. Goals from Daniel Natalizio and Travis Watts put UCSB on top once again with 2:23 on the clock. UCSD’s A.J. Kontanjean cut the Gaucho lead to one with 56 seconds to go and with six seconds left in the game, he posted another goal deadlocking the game at 9-9 to send the teams into overtime.
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The two teams traded two goals apiece during the regular overtime periods, including a goal from Golic with 11 seconds left in the second overtime period, sending the game into sudden victory overtime. Neither team scored in the third overtime period, but a goal from Adnan Jerkovic with 2:56 on the clock in the fourth overtime period captured the 12-11 win for UC San Diego.
UC Santa Barbara will be back in action on Saturday, Oct. 18 when they host UC Irvine for a non-conference match-up at the Gauchos’ very own Campus Pool. Game time is set for noon and admission, as always, is free to UCSB water polo home contests.
Pepperdine 12, UC Santa Barbara 10
1 2 3 4 Final UCSB 1 4 3 2 10 Pepperdine 5 3 3 1 12
UCSB Goals: Milos Golic 4, Sean Castillo 2, Miles Price 2, Travis Watts 2.
UCSB Goalie Saves: Michael Robinson 3.
Pepperdine Goals: Matt MacDonell 4, Adam Hewko 2, J.P. MacDonell 2, Clayton Snyder 2, Andrew Milcovich 1, Jacob Young 1.
Pepperdine Goalie Saves: John Hahn 5.
UC San Diego 12, UC Santa Barbara 11
1 2 3 4 OT1 OT2 SV1 SV2 Final UCSD 1 2 2 4 1 1 0 1 12 UCSB 2 1 4 2 0 2 0 0 11
UCSD Goals: A.J. Kotanjian 4, Adnan Jerkovic 3, Chance Vermilyea 2, Steven Donohoe 1, Jeff Hunt 1, Graham Saber 1.
UCSD Goalie Saves: David Morton 10.
UCSB Goals: Milos Golic 3, Daniel Natalizio 2, Noah Smith 2, Jesse Tootell 2, Sean Castillo 1, Travis Watts 1.
UCSB Goalie Saves: Michael Robinson 13.
