No. 5 Pepperdine Suffers Upset to No. 8 Long Beach

MALIBU, Calif. Â The No. 5 Pepperdine men’s water polo team suffered an upset Saturday, to No. 8 Long Beach State 7-5.

Junior Adam Hewko (Irvine, Calif. / Servite HS) scored the first goal of the game, but the 49er’s answered with three consecutive goals in the first quarter and the Waves never regained the lead. Long Beach’s Clint Wilson scored his second goal with 5:02 left in the second quarter, Hewko responded with his second goal 41 seconds later. The score at the half saw the Waves trailing 4-2.

Hewko scored his third goal with 4:13 left in the third quarter to close the scoring gap 4-3. A turning point came in the third quarter when Pepperdine’s Matt Macdonell (Redwood City, Calif. / Bellarmine HS) was ejected and the 49er’s Pavle Filpovic and Jeff Greenwood scored two goals respectively, closing out the quarter with the Waves down by three (6-3).

Wilson opened the fourth quarter with a third goal for Long Beach (7-3). With 2:00 left in the fourth, a controversial defensive play on an attempted goal by the Waves saw emotions rise and head coach Jack Kocur’s protest led to a red card and an ejection from the game. Pepperdine tried to close the gap with 1:32 left when Junior Matt Digges (Coronado, Calif. / Coronado HS) scored (7-4) and sophomore Brett Auer (Newport Beach, Calif. Newport HS) followed up with another goal with six seconds left in the game (7-5).

“Due to bad decisions and undisciplined play, we dropped the game to Long Beach today,” said assistant coach William Rodriguez. “We will be working hard to correct these mistakes so we are ready to play UCLA and UC Irvine in the next few weeks.”

Following the Long Beach game, the Waves met Cal Baptist for a non-conference game. Pepperdine prevailed with a score of 13-9.

 The Lancers Josh Harris opened the first quarter with what would be the first of three goals scored. Sophomore J.P. MacDonnell (Redwood City, Calif. / Bellarmine HS) was responsible for two goals and senior Nick Corjon (La Verne, Calif. / Bonita HS) added another goal with 1:56 left in the quarter (3-0).  Cal Baptist responded with two of their own, bringing the score to

4-2 with :44 left in the quarter. Corjon came back with his second goal to lengthen the lead to 5-2. MacDonell added two more goals in the second quarter and sophomore Clayton Snyder (Seal Beach, Calif. / Los Alamitos HS) scored the first of his four goals with :53 left in the half. Cal Baptist’s Chris Morgan scored his second goal of the game and one more goal from Pepperdine closed the half with the Waves leading 10-5.

The second half of the game saw the Lancers struggling to close the gap with two more goals by Harris and two goals by teammate Aaron Steiger. Snyder added three more goals for Pepperdine and the game ended with the Lancers down by four.

Next Friday, Nov. 9, the Waves travel to Irvine to meet No. 5 UC Irvine at 7 pm.

PEPPERDINE VS. LONG BEACH  7-5

               1                          2                          3                              4

PEPP     1                          1                          1                               2   --   5               

LB         3                          1                           2                              1   --   7

PEPP GOALS: A. Hewko (3), M. Digges, B. Auer

LB GOALS: C. Wilson (3), J. Koeppen, K. Mundia, P. Filipovic, J. Greenwood

 

PEPP SAVES: T. Stachowski (7)

LB SAVES: S. MacKenzie (10)

 

PEPPERDINE VS. CAL BAPTIST  13-9

                        1                          2                         3                                4

 PEPP              5                          3                         3                                 2  -- 13

 BAPTIST         1                          3                         3                                 2  --  9

PEPP GOALS: C. Snyder (4), J.P. MacDonell (4), N. Corjon (2), A. Hewko, T. Watson, G. Miller

BAPTIST GOALS: J. Harris (3), A. Steiger (2), C. Morgan (2), R. Steiger, A. Shorts

 

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