LA JOLLA, Calif. — The No. 12 UC San Diego men's water polo team closed out its Triton Invitational Sunday with a thrilling overtime victory against No. 8 Pepperdine at Canyonview Aquatic Center in La Jolla.
Coupled with a 21-7 win against McKendree earlier in the day, the Tritons finished the three-day event with a 5-1 record.
HOW IT HAPPENED AGAINST PEPPERDINE
Tied 15-15 after regulation, the game headed into two three-minute overtime periods. The Tritons netted a pair of goals in the first OT - both coming from junior transfer
Jack Wright - to take the lead. The Waves were held scoreless in the frame and neither team found the back of the net in the second extra period.
The game was tight throughout with the score knotted on nine occasions in regulation. It was tied 3-3 after the opening quarter. UC San Diego held a 4-2 goal advantage in the second, while Pepperdine won the third 6-4. Deadlocked at 11-11 after three quarters, both squads struck for four goals in the final regulation period.
Christian Hammonds continued to shine for the Tritons, recording seven points on five goals and a pair of assists.
Jackson Boettner also finished with seven points as he racked up three goals and four helpers. Senior
Finn Bugelli scored three times, his second career hat trick.
In goal,
Alex Hegeman made four saves while adding an assist and a steal in 34 minutes.
Boston Frost made one save in limited playing time.
For Pepperdine, Jackson Benners and Hunter Danko logged five points, each with three goals and two assists. Max Smirnov had 16 saves and three steals.
HOW IT HAPPENED AGAINST MCKENDREE
UC San Diego never trailed in the contest.
Mason Presley scored the game's first goal just 51 seconds in to put the Tritons on the board. McKendree answered 21 seconds later as Joshua Gibson made good on a power play to even it up at 1-1. That would prove to be the only tie score in the game.
UC San Diego scored the next 13 goals. The first came from
Jaime Bhattacharyya on a power play at the 6:09 mark of the first quarter. The final tally in the run was a
Jack Wright power play strike at 7:31 of the third period that made the score 14-1 UC San Diego. From that point, the Bearcats would get no closer than 11 goals, which came at 3:17 of the third when the Tritons were up 16-5.
Lucas Pearce scored UC San Diego's 20th goal with just under five minutes remaining in the game and
Nolan Anderson followed three minutes later to account for the 21-7 final score.
Both Anderson and Wright finished their outings with hat tricks. Five other Tritons scored two goals apiece including
Liam Amburgey, Chase Marsolf, Pearce,
Bryan Shapirshteyn, and
Davidka Skov.
All in all, 12 Tritons recorded at least one goal.
Boston Frost and
Jack Elder split time in goal for UC San Diego, making five and three saves, respectively. Elder also logged a pair of steals.
UC San Diego's biggest quarter was the second as it outscored McKendree 8-0.
The Tritons scored four goals on five-meter penalty shot opportunities.
Armand Le Goff and Yannick Robertson each scored twice for the Bearcats. Gavin Haight made five saves.
TRITON TIDBITS
• UC San Diego also earned wins against Bucknell, Mercyhurst, and La Verne during the tourney
• The Tritons' lone loss came to fourth-ranked California.
WHAT HEAD COACH MATT USTASZEWSKI HAD TO SAY
Overall Thoughts
It is always an exciting time of the year when the season kicks off down here for the opening weekend. We had some amazing programs attend and some really entertaining games. Thanks to UC San Diego Athletics for supporting us in our efforts to host a professional and well run tournament.
We really appreciate all the universities who consistently attend, but this year we were extremely fortunate to have some new programs compete. It was phenomenal to have McKendree and Mercyhurst out to La Jolla for the first time and we really appreciate them traveling all the way out to California.
Also, being able to host Saint Mary's for its first-ever games is something that the entire water polo community is proud of. We need to continue to grow the sport and they are a perfect example of a university seeing the incredible value that water polo can bring to an athletic department. Huge credit to their staff for putting together such a competitive new program from scratch.
On the Bucknell Game
Hosting Bucknell to open coach John McBride's final men's season was really special to me. He is an institution at Bucknell and we wish him the best in his future with our national team. I've been fortunate to learn a lot from him and I truly value him as a colleague and a friend.
We knew it would be a tough, competitive game to open the season. They have some local San Diego players who are very dangerous and I thought our team stayed really composed throughout four quarters. It was a strong opening win for us to get the season started.
On the Cal Game
Playing against Cal on the second day of the season was a great opportunity for us to compete with the best of the best. We knew the type of pressure that they would apply and we really tried to focus in on a few key details. Unfortunately, you need to be able to execute those details when the game is in the balance the the pressure has mounted. Credit to Cal for making those plays and creating enough separation to force us to chase the game at the end. This will be a good building block for our team, even though we were disappointed in the result.
On the Pepperdine Game
We definitely saved the most competitive and thrilling game for last! It was a back and forth game and we felt that we had to change the rhythm multiple times throughout the game. Both
Alex Hegeman and
Boston Frost were called upon multiple times, and they are examples of how you must always stay focused and ready for your time to come. Credit to them for staying locked into the game and into the team. It was a big win for us. We had to battle through the ups and downs of the game, but we were able to find some defensive consistency in overtime and that carried us to the win.
On the tournament overall…
I felt like this team was prepared for the challenges of the tournament, and playing six games in three days was truly a challenge. We had some massive performances by
Christian Hammonds and
Jackson Boettner on the perimeter, as well as
Finn Bugelli in the interior.
Jack Wright also stepped up big in overtime for us against Pepperdine. A testament to staying focused on the next play and fighting through the type of adversity that you will experience during the final day of a tournament against a strong opponent.
UP NEXT
UC San Diego is off until September 11 when the Tritons play at Cal State Fullerton in a non-conference match.
About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of The Big West in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 84 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.
