After beating Princeton in San Jose, Calif., on Oct. 4, the UCSD men’s water polo team stayed in Northern California over the weekend to compete in the NorCal tournament, which featured such top schools as Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Long Beach State and Pepperdine.
During the tournament, the Tritons won two of their four games. Then after the tournament, UCSD returned home and beat BYU-Hawaii 10-7 on Oct. 8.
On Oct. 5, the Tritons opened the NorCal tournament by falling to a solid Pepperdine team, which was coming off a big win over top-ranked Stanford.
“”I felt like we played well enough to win,”” said Triton head coach Denny Harper. “”I feel like you can learn something from losing and it was good to get some experience against a team at that level.””
In the 11-8 loss, UCSD had a three-goal deficit going into halftime and couldn’t overcome it, playing even with the Waves in both the third and fourth quarters. Triton Jonathan Hopkins led the balanced-as-usual UCSD attack, scoring three of the eight total goals.
Later that day, the Tritons had a chance to redeem themselves against Air Force. Led again by Hopkins’ three goals, to go along with eight saves by goalie Lance Onken, UCSD rolled to an 11-6 victory to split its two Saturday games.
On Oct. 6, the Tritons were able to keep some momentum. After a sluggish, low-scoring first half against UC Santa Barbara, UCSD poured it on to take down the Gauchos 9-4. Again, the scoring was nothing short of balanced, with six different Tritons finding the back of the cage. Jesse Casellini managed a game-high three goals for UCSD.
“”We were lethargic in the first half,”” Harper said of his team. “”Clark Peterson had a nice goal for us that got us on track.””
The Tritons finished the weekend on a bit of a sour note, losing to Long Beach State after holding an early 5-2 lead. It was the second time this year that UCSD had failed to put Long Beach State away after leading early in the game.
“”We just can’t seem to put a complete game together against them,”” Harper said. “”We stopped counter-attacking, and that’s the way we score.””
He added that the Tritons “”get one more chance at them later in the season at Long Beach.””
After the grueling weekend, the Tritons took a deserved day off on Oct. 7, and on Oct. 8 they completed a five-day stretch in which they played six games; the final game was at Canyonview Pool on Oct. 8 against BYU-Hawaii.
Coming off a long weekend and a day off, the evening matchup had all the makings of an upset. But the Tritons dispelled any such thoughts early. After the Seasiders scored late in the second period to get within two at 5-3, UCSD rattled off three-consecutive goals by Kellan Hori, Kevin Smoker and Matt Ellis to put the game out of reach.
Hori had his long-range shot measured out well beforehand.
“”It’s a shot I’ve been practicing,”” the senior said. “”I waited for the goalie to lean and caught him off guard.””
Hori, along with Ellis and Smoker, paced the UCSD scoring against BYU-Hawaii with two goals each.
“”We had a long weekend,”” Hori said. “”This is a good start to this week for the game against LMU.””
Next, the 13th-ranked Tritons face conference rival Loyola Marymount University in a game that will have huge implications on seeding for the conference tournament.
“”The game this Friday is huge,”” Onken said. “”With FallFest and all the extra things they have planned for the game [beer garden, etc.], we expect a good turnout on Friday.””
