LA JOLLA, Calif. - The No. 5 ranked Pepperdine men's water polo team finished in fourth place at the 2009 Triton Invitational.

A disappointing second day saw the Waves (2-2) lose both games on Sunday.Pepperdine was defeated by UC Santa Barbara 8-7, in the morning and Loyola Marymount prevailed 9-5, in the afternoon match for third place.

"We got off to a slow start against Santa Barbara," said assistant coach Gary O'Brien. "We really struggled to come back and tied twice at 4-4 and again at 5-5. We just didn't have the extra strength we needed to go ahead."

Senior Preston Lujan led the Wave offense with two goals.

The LMU match saw the Waves trailing by two or three goals for the first three quarters. LMU surged to a four goal lead in the fourth quarter.

"We played flat in the second game," said O'Brien. "We have a lot of freshman and this tournament was a learning experience. We have some work to do and this weekend gave us an idea of our strengths and weaknesses.

Senior JP MacDonell was the high scorer with two goals.

GAME 1: PEPPERDINE 7 UC SANTA BARBARA 8

                 1      2      3      4

PEP          0      3      2      2     7

UCSB       3      1      2     2     8

PEP GOALS: (P. Lujan 2, JP MacDonell 1, S. Busby 1,  J. Perry 1, C. Snyder 1, A. Milcovich 1)

UCSB GOALS: (N. Smith 4, B. Shoemaker 1, S. Partelou 1, C. Dyer 1, S. Evans 1)

GAME 2: PEPPERDINE 5 LMU 9

                 1      2      3      4

PEP         1       2      2     0     5

LMU        2       4      0     3     9

PEP GOALS: (JP MacDonell 2, A. Milcovich 1, S. Busby 1, J. Young 1),

LMU GOALS: (E. Asajavicius 6, T. Forai 1, A. Aki 1, A. MacDonell 1)