Water
polo drops two important games
Photos by Jon Cook/ Daily
Forty-Niner
Men's
Water Polo: The 49ers dropped two Mountain
Pacific Sports Federation games over the
weekend, dropping the team into sixth place
in the federation.
By
Daniel Frias
On-line Forty-Niner
Just
when things were starting to turn around
for the Long Beach State men's water polo
team, along came UCLA and Pepperdine University
to hand the 49ers two straight losses last
weekend. The No. 7 ranked 49ers (14-11,
3-4 MPSF) lost to No. 4 ranked UCLA Sunday
at the Campus Pool 12-7 and were beaten
by Pepperdine at the last second 12-11 Saturday
at Malibu.
LSBU
junior Erik Geoffroy, who leads the 49ers
this season in goals with 59, scored his
only goal of the game in the first period
to give The Beach a 2-1 lead. That lead,
however, lasted only a short while as UCLA
scored four consecutive goals to start the
second period and added one more before
halftime to take a 6-2 lead. The 49ers were
able to get one past the Bruins' goalie
to cut the lead to three goals, but that's
as close as they would get.
"We
started well," said 49ers men's water
polo head coach Rick Azevedo. "In the
second quarter we got outscored. We hit
a couple of good shots, but some things
we weren't doing well. We were trying to
play catch up and that doesn't work."
UCLA
Junior Brett Ormsby led all scorers with
four goals. Orsmby scored two of those goals
in the second period and then added one
in the third and fourth. His final goal
at the
5:27 mark gave UCLA a cushy 11-5 lead. The
Beach managed to score two goals in the
final quarter, but it was clearly not enough
as the Bruins routed the 49ers 12-7.
"We could have played better,"
Geoffroy said. "We made a lot of mistakes
offensively and defensively. We didn't do
what we were supposed to do. We didn't shut
down Orsmby."
"I
think it was a combination of frustration
and lack of execution," said Azevedo.
"I wasn't pleased with our execution.
We had a good game plan. We just didn't
do it."
Josh Hewko, Michael March, and Chris Pulido
had two goals each for the Bruins. The 49ers
had seven different players score a goal
in the game.
Saturday
the 49ers had a 11-10 lead with less than
two minutes to go in the game after senior
Nathan Allen scored his fourth goal of the
contest. Pepperdine tied the game just thirteen
seconds later after John Acosta put one
in the back of the cage for the Waves. The
49ers had two chances to put the game away
but were unable to find the back net. The
Waves, however, were able to find the back
of the net and with 17 seconds left to play
Morgan Matthies scored the game winning
goal to lift the Waves over the 49ers 12-11.
Allard
and Geoffroy led the Beach with four goals
each. Freshman Reid Tomassi scored two and
senior David Del Grande added one in the
contest.
The
49ers are good offensively, but need to
concentrate more on the defensive end, Azevedo
said.
"I'm
not pleased with our defense," said
Azevedo. "Offensively we were good.
We're scoring a lot of goals, but we're
also giving up too many goals. Twelve goals
in both games is a lot of goals. We are
leaning more towards our offense when we
should be working on our defense."
The
Beach finishes the season against Stanford
at the Campus Pool Sunday.
"I'm
not pleased with our defense. Offensively
we were good. We're scoring a lot of goals,
but we're also giving up too many goals.
Twelve goals in both games is a lot of goals."
-- Rick Azevedo
head coach
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