STOCKTON, Calif. – No. 21 Pacific women's water polo came together to earn its first Golden Coast Conference and home victory against Santa Clara 12-6 on Saturday at Chris Kjeldsen Pool at the Douglass M. Eberhardt Aquatics Center.
"We really rounded out a rather difficult week," head coach
Candice Vorbeck said, "It was our spring break, so we had some extra training going on. Played a good game on Thursday and then came back to play on Saturday. Offensively, we had a number of people step up and score today. It's always nice to see a little bit of diversity within our goals."
Sophomore
Dora Alaksza led Pacific (12-8, 1-2 GCC) with six points on four goals and two assists. Junior
Hila Futorian had two points on one goal and one assist. Sophomore
Ilyana Zlobinsky matched her season-high two goals.
Senior goalkeeper
Megan Acosta collected seven saves and is now 4-0 in net this season.
The game opened with Santa Clara (5-13, 1-1 GCC) taking a 2-0 lead. Futorian and Alaksza tied the game at the end of the first period.
Pacific had a 3-1 scoring advantage in the second. Freshman
Ella Cowan threw the ball in the back of the net at 7:25. Alaksza and junior
Natasha Dykman added two more to give Pacific the 5-3 lead at halftime.
Both teams traded goals in the third period. But Pacific hung on at the end of the third with the 8-6 edge.
The Tigers dominated the fourth with four unanswered goals while holding the Broncos to just zero to come out on top.
Pacific outshot Santa Clara 33-26 and had a .364 shooting percentage.
"After the LMU game, we figured out that if we play really hard defense our offense is going to sort its stuff out," Alaksza said. "We gave a lot of effort into figuring out our defense. That helped us in offense and the shots eventually went in."
Up next, the Tigers travel down south to face No. 23 San Diego State at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
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