Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme) – Spear Reporter
SJSU men’s water polo (10-15, 0-5 GCC) battled against University of the Pacific (19-6, 4-1 GCC) in a hard-fought contest that saw the Spartans lost 15-10 in their final home game.
Similar to its last match against UC Berkeley, SJSU found itself down early against UOP.
However, the Spartans would respond in the first quarter with both junior utility player Mark Kis and sophomore utility player Bende Pardi scoring.
At the end of the first, the Spartans found themselves down in a close one with the score at 3-2.
The Tigers continued their hot start to the end of the first by scoring to kick off the second quarter. But junior utility player Gal Haimovich responded to make the score 4-3.
At halftime, the score remained in favor of UOP at 7-5.
The third quarter featured another frustrating start to a quarter for the Spartans. UOP struck first in the third making it 8-5 and momentum was waning fast for the blue-and-gold.
Kis continued to star in the game for the Spartans, scoring towards the end of the quarter to get himself a hat trick.
With the score at 10-7 heading into the fourth quarter, the Spartans still had some life.
But again, the Spartans gave up the first goal of the quarter. This time senior attacker Djordje Stanic scored for UOP.
Kis found another goal in the fourth quarter to bring his goal total up to four but it was not enough. After the goal UOP went on a three-goal tear to put the game out of reach.
“Hey, it was a great game. It was the hardest we’ve played, we generated a lot of offense, the guys played really well. We just missed some of our chances,” said SJSU men’s water polo head coach Bruce Watson.
This was the final game of the season for the Spartans. They now have to wait to see who their next opponent is in the Golden Coast Conference Championship playoffs.
