Looking for its first conference win of the season, the No. 4 Cal water polo team held a 5-3 lead over No. 7 UC Santa Barbara heading into halftime. Up until that point, neither team had shown the ability to control and dictate the action of the game.

However, when the Bears jumped back in the pool, all that changed. Instead of continuing at its rather pedestrian pace, Cal ratcheted up the tempo and notched four consecutive goals to put the game out of reach.

"We came out slow, but I was really proud of the guys in the third quarter-we always stress the third quarter," sophomore Brian Dudley said. "Michael Jordan always said the most important minutes of the game are the first three minutes after halftime. It's a huge psychological blow when you're down at halftime and you come out and the other team puts more goals past you."

The offensive run spurred the Bears (14-5, 1-2 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) to an 11-8 victory over the Gauchos (12-8, 1-2) on Saturday at the Spieker Aquatics Complex.

On the whole, Cal's offensive attack was not much different from past games in that it was very balanced-10 players scored goals over the course of the game.

"That's hard to defend," Everist said. "Different guys stepped up. We were in a tight game and then our second group off the bench came in and really put a few goals away for us."

Everist went on to highlight the excellent play of junior Mike Sample and redshirt freshmen Cory Nasoff and Charlie Steffens. Steffens had two goals in the match.

The Gauchos, on the other hand, featured a completely different game plan that stressed getting the ball to sophomore Milos Golic as much as possible. The Serbian product leads the MPSF with 56 goals.

Everist tailored the game plan around containing Golic as opposed to the usual strategy of aggressively pressing all of the opponents' ball-handlers.

"We were coming off to try to take the ball out of Milos' hands-trying to force him to give up the ball a litte bit," Everist said. "(UC Santa Barbara) is not working for the set as much as trying to get him free."

Golic was eventually able to make his presence felt later in the match with two successful five-meter penalty shots. Coupled with goals from sophomore Brian Bishop and senior Miles Price, the Gauchos came within two scores of tying the Bears before Steffens put the game away for good on a counterattack.

"We started out pretty excited for winning this game, and then we didn't think too much about the real stuff," Golic said. "We played with more heart than head, and when we started to lose we realized the situation.

"In the fourth quarter the game changed, but it wasn't enough. It was too late."

Tags: CAL MEN'S WATER POLO, KIRK EVERIST, BRIAN DUDLEY