Long Beach State University
UC Santa Barbara
Beach Water Polo Falls To UCSB
10/17/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Water Polo
Long Beach, Calif. -
No. 8 Long Beach State kept the pace with UC Santa Barbara early on, but couldn't come back from a five-goal third quarter in a 10-7 loss to the Gauchos.
The 49ers struck first after drawing an exclusion from UCSB's Derek Shoemaker. Redshirt freshman Chandler Kaltenbach connected with a man advantage to take the lead at the 6:49 mark. Senior Dimitrios Lappas fired one from the outside to go up two with just over four minutes to go.
The Gauchos answered back tying up the game with goals from freshman Boris Jovanovic and junior Mitchell Hamilton, who's goal came off an LBSU exclusion.
Beach freshman Keegan Wicken broke the tie with his perimeter goal to give LBSU a 3-2 lead going into the second quarter.
At the beginning of the second, UCSB had an opportunity to tie up the match with a point-blank shot, but it went off the right post.
The 49ers drew another exclusion on junior Reed Cotterill, and Wicken hit the back of the net with a nice assist from senior Zacchary Kappos to go up 4-2 with just under four minutes to go in the second quarter.
The Gauchos fought back again, tying up the match with another pair of goals. Jovanovic scored his second of the match right after the goal from Wicken, and Shoemaker scored his first at the 1:33 mark.
The Gauchos had the opportunity to go into the half with the lead after drawing an exclusion with 10 seconds left, but LBSU senior Pavo Ljepopio came up big with the save to keep the game tied.
UCSB brought the fire in the third, outscoring the Beach 5-1. Chandler Kaltenbach scored the first goal of the quarter to break the tie and give the 49ers a 5-4 advantage with 6:44 left.
The Gauchos evened the score less than 20 seconds later with a goal from Shoemaker. After an exclusion on LBSU's Lappas, Hamilton scored his second goal of the match to give the 49ers the lead.
Cotterill scored a goal at the 4:20 mark to give UCSB a two-goal advantage. The 49ers gave up two consecutive exclusions, and the Gauchos connected on the second one to go up 8-5 with 2:28 left. That goal was Jovanovic's third goal of the match.
UCSB drew another exclusion on Wicken with 1:12 left in the third, and Shoemaker scored his second goal of the quarter and third goal of the match to give the Gauchos the 9-5 lead going into the fourth quarter.
The Beach started the final quarter trying to chip away at the Gauchos' lead one goal at a time on the offensive side and pressing the opponent on the defensive side.
The offense came early on with a goal by Wicken (his third goal of the match) at the 6:35 mark of the fourth quarter to cut the lead to 9-6 in favor of UCSB.
Three minutes went by of 49ers fighting for possession until they were rewarded a 5-meter penalty from the Gauchos' Hamilton, which was his third foul of the match. Redshirt freshman Austin Stevenson netted the goal for the Beach to cut UCSB's lead to 9-7 with three minutes left.
LBSU couldn't find the back of the net after that, and surrendered another goal to Shoemaker in the final seconds for the 10-7 loss to the Gauchos.
The 49ers fall to 7-10 on the season and 0-3 in the conference. UCSB improves to 12-6 overall and 1-2 in MPSF action.
The Beach return to regular season action with another home match on Thursday, Oct. 22 against Whittier College at 7 p.m.
BOX SCORE
FINAL RESULTS | |||||||
No. 6 UC Santa Barbara 10, No. 8 Long Beach State 7 | |||||||
Ken Lindgren Aquatics Center · Long Beach, Calif. · 10/17/15 |
SCORING BY PERIODS
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | FINAL | |||
UCSB | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 10 | ||
LBSU | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 10 |
Goals:
UCSB - Derek Shoemaker 4, Boris Jovanovic 3, Mitch Hamilton 2, Reed Cotterill
LBSU - Keegan Wicken 3, Chandler Kaltenbach 2, Dimitrios Lappas, Austin Stevenson
Saves:
UCSB - Chris Whitelegge 12
LBSU - Pavo Ljepopio 9
Players Mentioned
