Three Fourth-Quarter Goals Gives Pepperdine 8-7 Victory
11/2/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Water Polo
MALIBU, Calif. - With 1:10 remaining in Thursday's NCAA men's water polo game, junior Jason Langten scored his third goal of the day and capped off Pepperdine's 8-7 come-from-behind victory over cross-town rival Loyola Marymount that clinched the season series for the Waves.
Pepperdine (12-14) was led by Langten's (Irvine, Calif.) fifth hat trick of the season, while five other Waves scored once apiece in the winning effort.
LMU (14-10) received three scores from Ben Easton, two from Tim Heafner on the day. Tim Hummel and Julien Lormant scored one goal apiece.
It was all Lions in the opening period as the visitors took a 3-0 off consecutive scores by Easton and a penalty goal by Heafner.
Following a Jeff Willis (Goleta, Calif.) goal with 5:01 remaining in the second, Heafner and Hummel extended LMU's lead to four, 5-1. Langten notched his first score of the day with 1:45 remaining in the half. The goal started a 4-0 Pepperdine run that tied the contest at 5-all at the 4:09 mark in the third.
Easton regained the lead for the Lions with 2:33 remaining in the third and with 43 seconds on the clock, Lormant gave the Lions the 7-5 lead heading into the final eight minutes of play.
It took almost four minutes for the Waves to cut into the LMU lead.
With 3:43 to play, Dorian Beaney (Lake Forest, Calif.) beat the Lion keeper to cut the deficit to one, 7-6. Senior Doug Mann (Coronado, Calif.) scored with a man advantage with just under two minutes to play, setting up Lantgen's heroics, also with a man advantage. LMU had one final chance to send the contest to overtime after drawing an ejection with 22 seconds but the final shot was blocked before reaching the Pepperdine cage.
Pepperdine also downed the Lions, 15-6, on October 14 after losing the first meeting of the season, 9-7, in Los Angeles.
The Waves will return to conference action on Sunday at noon when they travel to Long Beach State for a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation game against the 49ers.
