49ers victorious in double header

By Jeff Dusing
Daily Forty-Niner

Long Beach State men's water polo team finished its double-header Sunday, claiming wins in both games and stretching its winning streak to four in a row.

"It was a nice weekend," said Head Coach Rick Azevedo. "We haven't been 7-3 in 12 years."

The first of Sunday's games was against Pepperdine University, which was ranked No. 8 in the NCAA as of September 20th. The game was truly a nail-biter as it went into sudden-death overtime before junior Aaron Holloway scored the winning goal 1:41 into the period to end the game at 13-12.

"They played really well," Azevedo said. "They played catch-up the whole time."

The high-scoring game was led by juniors Chris Segesman with five goals and Justin Jewell with four goals. Despite the high number of goals, Pepperdine was able to keep up as Scott Harvey came off a time-out to score the tie goal with only four seconds left, sending the game into overtime.

As each team scored twice in the first overtime period, the outcome would not be clear until Holloway's goal in sudden-death.

"Pepperdine really came in hard," Azevedo said. "They were definitely trying to make their move into a top four position."

Also coming up big was senior goalie Robert Smith, who had a season high of 17 saves. Other scorers for The Beach included Tyler Wawrzynski, Scott Miller and Nathan Allard.

The 49ers are now 1-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and Pepperdine is 0-2.

Following the 1 p.m. game against Pepperdine, the team returned to Campus Pool for a 15-1 win over Claremont-Mudd.

"They had just beat The Air Force Academy and they have had some very good games against Stanford and Cal," Azevedo said.

The match was opened by a strong push by The Beach, which ended up with an early 5-1 lead, from which the visitors would not recover.

"We executed a lot better," Azevedo said. "We still made a few mistakes, but I would expect that at this time in the season."

By the end of the game 10 49er players had scored. Freshman Pat Logan would lead the team with three goals as Brett Adolph backed the team up in the goal.

Additional scorers were Scott Miller, Jason Palda and Chris Segesman with two goals and Holloway, Bryce Felloney, Adam Collins, Tony Adair, Zed Salloum and David Del Grande each with one.

The team is now getting ready for perhaps the most difficult weekend of the season, facing No. 12 ranked University of Massacusetts, Amherst Friday, followed by No. 7 UC San Diego Saturday and No. 1 USC Sunday.