By Lindsey Boyd (@lindsboyd3):
No. 4 Stanford (7-3) blew San Jose State (5-6) out of the water with a 7-0 run to start the game. Three of the Cardinal goals were scored off of penalty shots. SJSU couldn’t close the gap, losing 16-5.
“You could see our youth,” said head coach Bruce Watson. “We thought we were ready to play and they were fired up and they created the exclusions…we didn’t quite match their intensity.”
Usually, freshman Jacob Mercep is the dominate freshman in the pool, but today he had three exclusions and fouled out in the third period.
“I don’t understand some of the calls from the referees but that’s not an excuse,” Mercep said. “I played a bad game and it won’t happen again.”
He was named the first Spartan to win Golden Coast Conference player of the week and is focused on pulling his team to the top 10 spot in the nation. Currently, SJSU sits at No. 18.
Freshman driver Ben Hallock took Mercep’s place as the top player in the water and fittingly scored six goals. Junior driver Blake Parrish added another four. Together, they accounted for more than double the amount of points that the rest of the team combined for.
“We were a bit soft on defense,” said freshman driver Justin Pickering who scored one of the Spartans’ five points.
The blocker wasn’t on Pickering so he took advantage of the inside opening and pounded his shot in.
San Jose State will play UC Irvine next on Friday Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. and will attend the Gary Troyer Tournament on Saturday, Oct. 7.
