The Cal men’s water polo team once again experienced a taste of deja vu at the NorCal Invitational this weekend.
For the third year in a row, the UCLA Bruins thwarted the Cal squad from having a chance to play for the NorCal tournament title, defeating the Bears in a semifinal matchup.
And for the third year in a row, Cal (6-2) lost to the Bruins by a single point, 6-5.
“With all the teams so close, it’s going to be how you finish out the games,” Cal coach Kirk Everist said. “Midway through the fourth quarters of the games, we were right there, and we didn’t finish them out.”
As expected, the No. 4 Cal squad opened the annual NorCal Invitational with a perfect 2-0 record to move to 6-0 in the season on Saturday.
The Bears started the two-day tournament with a dominant win over Air Force, 17-8, in an early morning tilt. Cal’s first-quarter rotations held the Air Force team goalless in the first quarter through strong defensive play, and the Falcons just could not overcome their initial six-point deficit for the rest of the match.
At 6:15 p.m. later that evening, Long Beach State displayed a little more resistance against the Bears but eventually fell, 15-10, to Cal’s strong offensive play. Junior Aleksa Saponjic garnered a match-high six goals against the 49ers, helping the Bears come out with a 4-1 lead after scoring two goals back-to-back in the first quarter.
Cal’s Saturday victories placed the squad in the Sunday morning semifinal matchup, pitting the Bears for the third time in a row against UCLA. However, the Cal team could not hold on to its success, eventually falling to the No. 2 Bruins.
The Bears took an early advantage in the first quarter after redshirt freshman Farrel South scored during a Cal power play. At the start of the second period, however, UCLA notched two quick points back to back, the first of which was scored during a 6-on-4 power play.
Heading into the fourth quarter, the Bruins held a 4-3 lead, before sophomore two-meter man Max Schell tied the game at 4-4 with an inside goal. But UCLA jumped ahead with two swift goals to lead by a margin large enough to put the match out of reach for the Bears.
Saponjic scored a long shot to put Cal within one goal with 27 seconds left in the game, but by then it was too late for the Bears, as the Bruins took possession of the ball until the end of the fourth quarter.
The Bears later fell to No. 5 Stanford in their last match of the tournament, 12-10, to finish the NorCal Invitational in fourth place.
Although the Cal team once again fell to UCLA in the semifinal matchup and to the Cardinal in the final game of the tournament, Everist found the Bears’ weekend performance to be decent, especially after the loss of utility Ayal Keren two days earlier to injury.
“On the heels of losing a senior leader and extremely impactful player two days before the tournament had an effect on us, but I thought they adjusted pretty well,” Everist said. “I saw a lot of good things, and we got some of our younger players stepping up, so that’s encouraging … but we’re going to need to improve to get to where we want to be.”
Janice Chua covers men’s water polo. Contact her at [email protected].