Thousand Oaks, Calif. – The Cal Lutheran men's water polo team hosted the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens Thursday afternoon in the Samuelson Aquatics Center for a Southern California Intercollegiate Atheltic Conference (SCIAC) matchup. The Sagehens walked away with a 15-7 victory.
Pomona-Pitzer took an early lead and scored the first goal of the game in the first minute. A minute and a half later, Chris Gardhouse got the Kingsmen on the board as he tied up the score. The Sagehens took control early on and had a 5-2 lead at the end of the first. Gardhouse scored both goals for the Kingsmen and Justin English recorded an assist. Gardhouse drew two executions while George French added one.
Taggart Diehl got the scoring going in the second quarter as he received a nice pass from Mats Albins and fired the ball into the back of the net. The Sagehens scored a couple possessions later to push their lead back to three. They kept the pressure on and added three more goals before the end of the half and had a 9-3 lead. Davy Thomas added a drawn exclusion during the quarter.
Thomas scored the first goal of the second half for the Violet and Gold with a perfectly placed ball to the bottom right corner. A little bit later, Cal Lutheran's Zach Zamecki cut Pomona-Pitzer's lead in half with his first goal of the game. The Sagehens had a 10-5 lead with 4:30 left in the third quarter. Everytime the Kingsmen got close, Pomona-Pitzer would open the lead back up. Zamecki added his second goal with 1:26 left in the third, but the Sagehens still led 13-6. With 22 seconds left, CLU got a goal from Gardhouse to cut the lead to six.
Not much changed in the fourth quarter as the Sagehens won the match 15-7. Gardhouse led the squad with three goals. Zamecki added two goals and Thomas and Kevin Oetken had one apiece. Albins was the team leader in assist and steals with 2 each. Nick Loomis was in goal for CLU and made nine saves.
The Kingsmen (9-11, 3-5 SCIAC) continue the season at home as they host Occidental Saturday morning at 11 a.m. in the Samuelson Aquatics Center.
Box Score: PP 15, CLU 7
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Release by Ryan Jorgenson, Interim Sports Information Director