Oct. 4, 2009
GALLERY
In spite of Bronco All-American Jack Wall's three first period goals, No. 11 Santa Clara fell, 11-5, to No. 2 UCLA in men's water polo today at the Sullivan Aquatic Center. It was the two highest-ranked teams to ever play in the Sullivan Aquatic Center, which opened late last October.
Santa Clara falls to 13-5 and UCLA moves to 9-2 after falling 9-8 to No. 1 Stanford on Saturday.
"We came out strong in the first period which was important to us after a tough loss yesterday," said Bronco head water polo coach Keith Wilbur. "UCLA is a very good team and to beat a team like the Bruins you have to play four periods. We have to learn to sustain our energy we played with in the first period for four quarters. Overall I thought we played a good game, but we have to do a better job of finishing games."
Wall scored four goals and Liam Farrell added one in the third period. UCLA was featured a balanced attack, with four players scoring two goals each.
Wall scored at will in the first period, hitting the back of the net in the first period at 7:13, 1:58 from 17 feet out and 1:18. Santa Clara led after the first period 3-0.
In the second period, the Bruins scored four unanswered goals to take a 4-3 lead. UCLA scored at 6:09, 3:35 and 3:06 on Santa Clara's transition defense. The Bruins added their fourth goal at 2:11, and led 4-3 at the half.
In the third period Santa Clara scored two goals, one by Farrell (4:09) and the fourth on the day for Wall (2:16). The Bruins put up three to take a 7-5 lead to the final period.
In the final period, UCLA started to control both sides of the pool and scored four goals without a Bronco answer.
"Our offense had a lot of good drives and motion early on and that is something you have to do against a team like UCLA. We got the match-ups we wanted and that helped," said Wilbur. "We didn't do that much in the second half and that's when UCLA pounced on us."
