The Lancers shot out to an early lead that proved too much for the Tritons to overcome. Down 3–0 with two minutes left to play in the first period, senior driver Katherine Biehle took one back to cut the deficit to 3–1 going into the second quarter.
The Tritons caught up to within one point in the second period, as Biehle and the Tritons’ leading goal scorer, sophomore Sarah Lizotte, combined for three goals to sneak to within one point by the end of the first half.
Having nearly closed the gap, the Tritons dropped tempo at the start of the second half, as the Lancers came back with three straight goals. With four minutes left to play in the quarter, Cal Baptist took the largest lead of the game, going up 8–4.
“The third quarter has been our worst quarter all season long — maybe I’m not giving very good halftime speeches, I don’t know,” head coach Brad Kreutzkamp said to the athletics department. “We came out in the third and didn’t press them. We needed to win that quarter and we didn’t.”
Despite a slow start, the Tritons were able to pull back three, as Lizotte sunk a penalty and Biehle capitalized on breakaway with the third quarter coming to a close.
Looking to cut a two-goal lead, the Tritons suffered another slow start, allowing the Lancers an early goal to go up 7–10. Lizotte responded just five seconds after with her fourth goal of the game. The two teams battled down the stretch, but the Triton offense couldn’t galvanize to cut the Lancer defense, falling 8–11.
“Losing is always disappointing and even more so when we only go 1 for 9 on our power plays,” head coach Brad Kreutzkamp said in an email interview. “We’ve had great practices and our power play has been becoming a strength of ours, so to perform like that was tough on us all. However, our team has shown resilience all year long and I know we will perform better when our conference tournament takes place in a few weeks right here at UCSD. We will be ready.”
This weekend, the Tritons will travel up North to Santa Clara University where they will compete in the Bronco, an invitational pitting nine western water polo teams against each other.
UCSD’s first game is slated for Saturday, April 14, when the Tritons will face off against CSU East Bay at 9:15 a.m.
