PALO ALTO, Calif. - After opening the season with a strong performance at the Inland Empire Tournament, No. 14 Santa Clara men's water polo ran into some tough competition on the first day of NorCals hosted by Stanford. The Broncos fell to the host No. 14 Cardinal 19-1 in the morning and lost to No. 12 UC Davis 5-3 in the evening. The losses move Santa Clara to 3-3 overall with a 3-1 mark in the WWPA.

Jimmy Moore was the only Bronco to score more than one goal on the day as he scored two total, one in each game. Goalkeepers John Nash and Matt Pritchett collected nine and 10 blocks respectively in net.

Santa Clara returns to the pool tomorrow for two more games to wrap-up NorCals.

"Stanford is a really good team but we need to play better than we did against them today," said Santa Clara head coach Keith Wilbur. "The game against Davis was obviously a low scoring game and I didn't think we came out and played great defense in the first quarter. I thought we did much better defensively in quarters two, three and four. We need to be more aggressive on offense in front of the cage and on counter attacks against top teams like the ones we played today."

In their first game of the day, Santa Clara fell behind early against Stanford and trailed 3-0 after the first quarter and 8-0 at halftime. The lone Bronco goal came in the third quarter and was scored by Moore. Nash collected seven saves in the first half and Pritchett had six in the second half. Freshman Evan Chang had three earned ejections.

Playing in the late afternoon, Santa Clara again fell behind early vs. UC Davis. At the end of one quarter the score was 3-1 Aggies but the Broncos made the score 3-2 at halftime. Despite the game being close throughout, Santa Clara was unable to tie the score or take the lead at any point and fell 5-3. Moore scored his second goal of the day and James Rude and Chase Schaaf each scored once. Schaaf also had two earned ejections. Nash and Pritchett each had four blocks.

SCU   0 0 1 0  1
STAN 3 5 7 4 19
Goals: Moore
Blocks: Nash 7, Pritchett 6