Coming off a disappointing 12-9 loss to Pepperdine and an exhilarating 11-10 overtime win against UC Davis in Saturday’s doubleheader, the Long Beach State men’s water polo team concluded a three-game weekend with an 11-8 victory over Brown Sunday.
Against Brown, The Beach jumped out to an early 3-1 first quarter lead, topping off the half with a 6-3 lead with goals from five different players.
Riding the momentum from the first half, The Beach outscored Brown 3-1 in the third quarter to take a commanding 9-4 lead, but its inability to hold leads in the fourth quarter almost came back to haunt the team.
Brown outscored The Beach 4-2 in the fourth quarter but The Beach withstood the rally and took the match 11-8.
“What stood out [against Brown] was our inability to play defense,” said LBSU head coach Gavin Arroyo. “That’s been our weakness. Teams have been putting up numbers against us. The good thing is we’re able to score, but we’re not going to get very far if we can’t get stabilized on defense.”
Against No. 8 UC Davis, The Beach needed overtime and sudden death to come out victorious. The match was forced to sudden victory after both teams scored one goal each in the first overtime. With only three seconds left on the shot clock, The Beach capped off the match on one of Gerardi’s five goals to propel the team to a 10-9 victory.
After a flat first quarter, The Beach managed to tie the match 5-5 at halftime. Both teams then scored two goals in the third and two in the fourth, tying the match at 9 apiece.
In the first match of the weekend, Pepperdine took the lead scoring the first five goals of the match, but The Beach slowly chipped away. Playing behind Jay Gerardi’s five goals, The Beach was able to stay in the match until the fourth quarter.
Tied at 8-8 in the last frame, Pepperdine scored four consecutive goals, outscoring The Beach by three and cruising to a 12-9 victory.
Pepperdine was led by JP MacDonell’s four goals and Nick Corjon’s three.
Over the weekend, The Beach scored 21 goals, with over half the production coming from Gerardi’s 11 goals. Jeff Greenwood and Nick Korsgaden each had four goals and Kevin Bradley had three.
With the win over Brown, The Beach was able to finish off the weekend in a positive note, finishing with a 2-1 record.
“I’m pleased with the Davis win and frustrated with the Pepperdine loss,” Arroyo said. “I wanted to be 3-0 this weekend. We just have to keep working. I still think we’re going to make the biggest improvement of any of our competitors.”
The Beach will be back in the pool against Stanford and UCLA. The two matches will be part of the SoCal Touranment hosted by USC at he Commerce Aquatics Park this Sunday.
