THOUSAND OAKS – The No. 10 UC Santa Barbara women’s water polo team (11-10) split its two games on Saturday morning at the Posada Royale Invitational, which is being hosted by Cal Lutheran. The Gauchos suffered a narrow 7-6 loss to Occidental before rolling past Azusa Pacific, 15-3.
In the second game of the day against Azusa Pacific, UCSB climbed out to a 4-0 lead in the first quarter, the scoring spree included both of Kacey Creek’s goals.
The Gauchos posted four more unanswered goals to open the second quarter before Taylor Whitney was able to momentarily pause the UCSB onslaught with the first Azusa Pacific goal. UCSB proceeded to pour two more in before Gabrielle Kredel scored the first of her two points with just 48 seconds left in the half.
Claryann Olofsson-Loo scored both of the Gauchos’ goals in the third quarter to stretch the UCSB lead to 12-2 heading into the final stanza. She would have another pair in the final quarter as Santa Barbara wrapped up the 15-3 win.
UCSB had a rough start to the day against Occidental. Lauren Martin got the Gauchos out to an early 1-0 lead with 4:40 on the clock in the first quarter. Nanea Fujiyama countered with the first of her four goals almost two minutes later to tie the game.
The Gauchos regained the lead with a goal from Molly Hafferkamp, but Katya Soot fired back to tie the game at 2-2 heading into halftime.
Fujiyama gave Occidental its first lead of the game less than a minute into the third quarter with a five-meter penalty goal.
The seesaw battled continued and with 3:08 left to play in the game, the score was deadlocked at 6-6. With 1:06 remaining in the game, Lindsay Albino scored during a six-on-five to give Occidental the final lead.
UCSB will return home next Sunday, March 11 to host Harvard. Game time is slated for noon.
