Sept. 25, 2004

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - The Santa Clara men's water polo team split a pair of matches in the first day of the Slugfest Tournament at UC Santa Cruz on Saturday. In the morning match, SCU posted a 14-11 victory over Whittier College before dropping a hard fought 8-7 match to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. After the first day of competition, the Broncos improve to 2-8 on the season.

"We played well against Whittier," said head coach Keith Wilbur. "We came out strong and had a good match all around."

Kenny Flanagan-De La Hoz and Charlie Moore each recorded hat tricks in the 14-11 win. For Flanagan-De la Hoz, it marked his second straight match with three goals. Moore's hat trick marked the first of the freshman's collegiate career.

Grant Allison and Matthew Martin each scored twice for SCU, while Allison also drew two kick-outs. Chris Parolin drew two four-meter shots in the match, while scoring a goal and earning a kick-out. Josh Early, Jon Greco and Mark Oda also tallied a score for SCU.

After only an hour off, Santa Clara jumped back into the water for a match against Claremont. The game was close through out before CMS posted a two goal lead heading into the fourth quarter. The Broncos would even the score twice in the final period, but could not comeback from the final CMS score.

Early posted two goals in the match, while Greco, Parolin and Moore also scored in both matches. Danny Soares also added a score for the Broncos.

Goalkeeper Peter Moore had a solid day in the cage wth 19 blocks in two matches, including 11 against CMS.

Santa Clara will continue play in the Slugfest Tournament tomorrow when it kicks off play against LaVerne at 10:20 a.m. In their second match of the day, the Broncos will face UC San Diego at 3:10 p.m.