By Larry Larkin (@larrylarkinsjsu) – Spear Reporter
In a game that came down to the final two minutes, No. 12 San Jose State men’s water polo (11-4, 1-1 WCC) beat Pomona-Pitzer (11-10, 5-1 SCIAC) 13-11 Saturday at home in its second game of the Julian Fraser Memorial.
Junior driver Mateja Bosić, junior attacker Erik Duesund and utility sophomore Louis Fehrensen each scored three goals for the Spartans, including Bosić assisting Duesund’s power-play goal that gave them a 12-10 lead with one minute and 59 seconds remaining in regulation.
SJSU interim head coach Gabor Sasuri spoke about how his team knows how to handle late-game situations.
“Some of our older experienced players know what to do because they’ve been through it over the last few years,” Sarusi said. “And then some of our younger players still need to learn it.”
Sauri spoke about the team’s mental tiredness. This was SJSU’s third game in three days but also its seventh game in eight days which included a doubleheader on each Oct. 19 and 20.
“I’m glad we came up with a W,” Sarusi said in a video posted to the SJSU Athletics website. “We didn’t play as well as we were hoping for but our mental tiredness is slowly coming out.”
The Spartans outshot the Sagehens 34-29.
The game was a thriller as neither team led by more than two goals at any point.
“The encouragement on the bench made us fired up whenever we scored,” Duesund said. “Seemed like they would score back so the biggest thing was just keeping our heads up, not trying to get too down, not trying to be too harsh on ourselves and just trying to keep a positive mindset.”
Bosić spoke about the unselfishness of the team.
“We were disciplined,” Bosić said. “We were waiting for the end of the shot clock to shoot, and we were playing for each other.”
SJSU has an early wakeup call going into its final game of the Julian Fraser Memorial. Scheduled start time is 8 a.m. Sunday at home against Harvard.
