October 19, 2011

Weekly Release In PDF Format

What's Happening
The No. 7 Pacific men's water polo team welcomes No. 3 Stanford to Kjeldsen Pool for a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match Friday, October 21, at 3 p.m.

Last Week In Brief
The Tigers opened MPSF play with a match at then-No. 8 Pepperdine on Sunday, October 16. Meeting for the third time this season, it took overtime before the Waves pulled out a close 11-10 victory.

A Quick Look Ahead
Pacific will host No. 8 UC Irvine in a conference match Saturday, October 29, at 12 p.m., before traveling to Santa Clara for a nonconference match with the No. 15 Broncos on Sunday, October 30, at 12 p.m.

News And Notes
Sophomore Balazs Erdelyi continued his scoring streak against Pepperdine. He has now scored at least one goal in 13 consecutive matches.

Senior Tom Koning's four-goal effort against the Waves was his ninth multi-goal outing of the year and the 38th of his career. He leads the Tigers in games of at least four goals with three.

Sophomore Alex Malkis recorded double-figure saves for the eighth time this year. He now has 15 career double-figure save outings.

Sunday's loss to Pepperdine marked the first time the Tigers failed to win after leading at halftime this year. They are now 7-1 when they hold an advantage at intermission.

Pacific is now 7-2 when scoring at least ten goals. Both of their losses have come against Pepperdine as the Tigers scored 11 games in their loss to the Waves at the NorCal Tournament.

Upcoming Milestones
Sophomore goalkeeper Alex Malkis is one save away from 350 career saves. He moved into seventh on the career saves list earlier this season, and is only 52 saves from sixth all-time.

Seniors Tyler Reardon and Tom Koning have played 98 and 97 career matches, respectively.

Reardon is only four steals shy of 100 career thefts.

Scouting Stanford
The Cardinal enter their tilt with Pacific at 9-3, including a 2-1 mark in MPSF play. Stanford inherited the No. 1 ranking after winning the SoCal Tournament, but fell to UCLA last weekend, halting a six-game winning streak in the process.

Freshman Alex Bowen is averaging 2.27 goals per game, good for fourth in the MPSF. Senior goalkeeper Brian Pingree is saving an average of 6.13 shots per game and is giving up only 6.21 goals per game, the third-lowest in the league.

As a team, the Cardinal are scoring an average of 8.83 goals per game, the only MPSF team to average less than 10 goals per match. Defensively, they are giving up 6.08 goals per game, the third-fewest allowed in the MPSF.

Pacific and Stanford have met once already this season, as the two squads faced off in a quarterfinal match at the NorCal Tournament back on Sept. 17. Ranked No. 4 at the time, the Cardinal defeated the Tigers 9-8 in overtime as sophomore Forrest Watkins scored the game-winning goal with 1:01 left in the first overtime period.

Pacific's senior Tom Koning tallied three scores in the match while junior Goran Tomasevic recorded a pair of goals.

The Tigers' sophomore goalkeeper Alex Malkis saved nine shots.

MPSF Stat Rankings
Sophomore Balazs Erdelyi ranks third in the MPSF with an average of 2.50 goals per game. He has 35 scores on the season, good for third-most in the league.

Senior Tom Koning is averaging 2.20 goals per game and has registered 33 scores on the year. His per-game average ranks sixth in the conference.

Junior Goran Tomasevic is scoring an average of 1.87 goals per game, good for eighth in the MPSF.

Sophomore Alex Malkis is averaging 10.16 saves per game, only one of three goalkeepers to average double-figure saves. He has 127 saves on the year, second-most in the league.

Recapping Last Week
Pacific 10, No. 8 Pepperdine 11 (OT)
The No. 6 Pacific men's water polo team was edged 11-10 on overtime by No. 8 Pepperdine in its Mountain Pacific Sports Federation opener Sunday, October 16, at Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool.

The match opened with the two squads trading a pair of goals as senior Tom Koning and junior Balazs Szabo netted for the Tigers. Senior Daniel Lungu scored late in the period to give Pacific a 3-2 advantage after eight minutes.

Sophomore Balazs Erdelyi had two close calls early in the second quarter as consecutive shots hit the post and were saved, respectively. He managed to find junior Goran Tomasevic on a counter, however, as Tomasevic's goal put the Tigers up 4-2 midway through the quarter. Tomasevic would draw a penalty with one minute left in the half which Erdelyi converted into a goal that gave Pacific a 5-2 lead hading into intermission.

Pepperdine came out strong in the third quarter, scoring on a six-on-give play early in the period before notching a second goal to cut the Tigers' lead to 5-4. Koning had the answer for Pacific, finishing on a power play midway through the frame. The Waves would find the back of the cage a third time, again making it a one-goal game, but senior Tyler Reardon converted a shot with four seconds left to give the Tigers a 7-5 lead with one quarter left.

The Waves completed their comeback with consecutive goals to tie the match at 7-7. Koning again came up huge for Pacific, tallying his third score of the match to put the Tigers back on top at the 5:38 mark. It would be short-lived, however, as the hosts knotted the match at 8-8 on a shot to the bottom corner of the cage.

Erdelyi registered his second assist of the match at the 3:28 mark as he found Szabo, who put the shot away and gave the Tigers a 9-8 lead. Pepperdine answered less than 30 seconds later, tying the match at 9-9.

Both teams had their chances to win as time wound down. Pacific came up empty on a power play before shots from Tomasevic, Koning, and Erdelyi were saved. The Waves had a breakaway with less than one minute left that was saved by the Tigers' goalkeeper, sophomore Alex Malkis.

Playing in their second overtime match in as many meetings, the hosts netted first to take a 10-9 lead. With just three seconds left, Koning scored his fourth goal of the match off of a pass from Szabo to knot things at 10-10 with three minutes left.

The Tigers would draw an ejection early in the second overtime but failed to convert as junior Jason Wensley's shot was blocked. A Pepperdine score from junior Spencer Hamby at the 1:48 mark proved to be the game-winner as Pacific had shots blocked at the 40-second mark and as time expired.

Koning paced Pacific with four goals, his ninth multi-goal outing of the season. Szabo recorded a pair of scores on the day.

Manning the cage for the Tigers was Malkis, who tallied 13 saves, his eighth double-figure save outing of the year.

Pepperdine was led by junior Matthew DeTrane, who scored four times for the Waves. Sophomore Bence Valics recorded 13 saves.