Men's Water Polo Splits on Opening Day

Saturday, September 4

La Jolla, Calif.

8:30 a.m. PT

Pepperdine University

1-0

California Baptist

0-1

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
California Baptist	2	1	3	4	10
Pepperdine	2	3	4	3	12

Photo by: Jeff Golden

9/4/2021 2:32:00 PM | Men's Water Polo

Box Score 1 Box Score 2 Photo Gallery

By: by Athletic Communications

LA JOLLA, California – The #5 Pepperdine men's water polo team's season got off to a mixed start, as the Waves defeated #14 California Baptist, 12-10, on Saturday morning before falling to tournament host and ninth-ranked UC San Diego, 17-12, in the afternoon at the Triton Invitational.

The Waves (1-1) led for nearly the entirety of the game against the Lancers, but trailed the Tritons for almost all of the second contest.

BIG WAVES

Senior utility Sean Ferrari (Redwood City, Calif./St. Francis HS) had a team-high four goals on the day with two in each contest.
Sophomore attacker Anthony D'Ambra (Rolling Hills, Calif./Palos Verdes HS), junior utility Kaden Kaneko (Huntington Beach, Calif./Mater Dei HS) and senior attacker Balazs Kosa (Budapest, Hungary) all had hat tricks against UC San Diego.
Senior goalie John Claude Marco (Atherton, Calif./Sacred Heart Prep) had eight saves against CBU and three against UCSD.

GAME #1 RECAP

The Waves only trailed once in the game at 3-2 in the second quarter but goals by Ferrari, freshman center Matty Walsh (Laguna Beach, Calif./Santa Margarita Catholic HS) and junior utility Zach Arthur (Redlands, Calif./Redlands East Valley HS) put Pepperdine in front to stay at 5-3. A third-quarter counterattack goal by senior center Nicholas Fichmann (Sao Paulo, Brazil/Golden West College) gave the Waves their first three-goal lead at 7-4. It was 9-6 after three quarters, but CBU cut the deficit to one at 10-9 with 2 1/2 minutes to go. Ferrari and Fichmann both scored again to put the game out of reach.

CBU 2-2-2-4--10
PEPP 2-3-4-3--12
Pepperdine goals: Sean Ferrari 2, Nicholas Fichmann 2, Jake Howerton 2, Austin Smit 2, Zach Arthur 1, Clay Kaneko 1, Kyle Thomas 1, Matty Walsh 1.

GAME #2 RECAP

The Waves led just once, at 2-1, after a pair of D'Ambra goals. It was last tied at 5-5 in the second quarter after Kosa scored twice. The Tritons went up by three at 8-5 and four at 10-6 early in the third quarter. Three straight Pepperdine tallies got the Waves back within one at 10-9. It was still a one-goal game early in the fourth quarter when D'Ambra scored to make it 12-11. But, the Tritons finished the game out by scoring five of the final six goals.

UCSD 3-6-3-5--17
PEPP 3-3-4-2--12
Pepperdine goals: Anthony D'Ambra 3, Kaden Kaneko 3, Balazs Kosa 3, Sean Ferrari 2, Zach Arthur 1.

NOTABLE

Three Waves – Christian Hosea, Travis Reynolds and Nico Tearney – are missing the opening weekend of play as they compete for the U.S. at the FINA Men's Junior World Championship in the Czech Republic.
Kosa is now at 188 career goals, 13th all-time at Pepperdine.

UP NEXT

The Waves have two more games in La Jolla on Sunday (Sept. 5) as they take on Biola at 10:40 a.m. and Occidental at 1:20 p.m.