Stockton, Calif. – The No. 7 Pacific men's water polo team opened MPSF play with a 17-14 loss to the No. 3 California Golden Bears on Friday night at Chris Kjeldsen Pool. The Tigers suffered the loss despite multi-goal efforts from Ben Stevenson, Devon Thumwood, Casey Fleming, Krisztian Laczkovics and Sean Grady.
Cal opened the scoring on its opening possession as Luka Ivanovic tossed one past Tigers' goalie Brady Moore to take a 2-0 lead. The Golden Bears increased their lead to 2-0 on an ensuing goal by Colin Mulcahy.
Pacific's first goal came from Grady to cut the deficit to one, but Cal would make it a three-goal contest with goals from Thomas Agramonte and Pedro Stellet. After Laczkovics scored the first of his two goals on the night for Pacific, Matt Russell ended the first quarter with a goal for Cal that put the Tigers behind 5-2.
The Golden Bears continued to build their momentum at the start of the second quarter as Aleksa Saponjic put one in net to give Cal a 6-2 lead. Though Cal built a four-goal advantage, Stevenson would tally a hat trick in the second quarter to keep the Tigers in the contest. After Thumwood and Cal's Luca Cupido traded tallies to make it a 7-3 contest in favor of Cal, Stevenson scored back-to-back goals to cut the Pacific deficit in half. After Blake Kelly scored for the Golden Bears, Stevenson added his third goal of the quarter to get it back to a two-goal Tiger deficit at 8-6. Cal would score two of the final three goals of the half to go into intermission with a 10-7 lead.
Pacific opened the second half scoring with a tally from Simon Vogel, but Saponjic and Ivanovic scored back-to-back goals to extend the Cal lead back out to four at 12-8. Laczkovics scored the final goal of the quarter for Pacific as the Tigers trimmed their deficit to 12-9 heading into the final frame.
Though the Tigers kept it close, each team scored three goals in the final quarter as the Golden Bears kept Pacific at bay. Fleming scored the opening goal of the fourth and his second goal of the night for the Tigers to cut the Golden Bears lead to 12-10. Chandler Jarrels-Stickney countered for Cal to make it 13-10. After Thumwood scored for the Tigers to complete his hat trick, Cal tallied two of the final three goals of the match, the final goal scored by Saponjic as Cal sealed a 15-12 victory.
Pacific goalie Brady Moore totaled 12 saves on the night while a pair of Cal goalies, Lazar Andric (first half) and Jon Sibley (second half) totaled seven stops.
Pacific will next travel to Santa Clara on Saturday for a tilt with the No. 14 Broncos at 6:00 pm.
