The bleachers were full at UCSB’s Campus Pool on Monday night as UCSB’s men’s water polo team faced off against defending European champion Montenegro, the ninth-ranked team in the world. For about a third of the match things were even before Montenegro overpowered the Gauchos to post a 19-6 victory.
“They wore us down, but I felt happy that we gave them a good game in the first half. We knew we weren’t gonna win this game, but we just wanted to stay with them,” said UCSB coach Wolf Wigo, who played with his team in the match along with his brothers, Drac and Jansen, who were All-Americans at Stanford.
UCSB goalie Myles Christian faces a point-blank shot.
With Wigo in the water, assistant Tim Settem took the reins from the bench.
“It was just an amazing experience. For the community to be exposed to that level of water polo for free is just awesome. I thought our guys competed very hard, but obviously they’re a very talented team… Our guys went through a big learning experience,” said Settem.
Goalie Myles Christian made some great saves against the visitors, including a blocked penalty shot with five minutes left in the game that drew the biggest cheers of the match.
Drac Wigo scored on a nice left-handed, cross-cage shot with 1:08 left in the first quarter to even the score at 3-3, but Montenegro would score the next five goals and take a 10-5 lead into halftime. Some nice passing with a 6-on-5 advantage allowed Drac Wigo to score again and narrow the gap to 13-6 with 5:28 to go. Christian’s big block followed, but Montenegro shut down the Gauchos the rest of the way.
Montenegro coach Petar Porobic, whose team is playing three games against the U.S. National Team on top of the UCSB match during the trip, felt his team could have played much better.
“This morning we had some difficult training, but we must play better and more hard. We are first team in Europe, and we must play hard,” he said.
As for Wolf Wigo, he said he felt a little out of shape, but enjoyed getting in the water with his brothers and his players. The Gauchos even got a chance to give their coach a piece of their mind in the early stages of the match.
“I messed up one play in the beginning of the game and everybody got on me for it. I deserved it though,” he said.
The Gaucho season begins in early September.
