By Matthew Meyer (@mattmeyersjsu) – Spear Reporter | SJSU sophomore 2-meter Bridget Cranley takes a shot against ASU (Photo courtesy of SJSU Athletics)
The No. 16 San Jose State women’s water polo team (5-8, 0-2 MPSF) fell to No. 5 Arizona State (19-2, 1-1 MPSF) 21-7 at the Spartan Recreation and Aquatic Center on Sunday afternoon.
The Spartans finish their Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference matchup weekend 0-2, also losing 19-8 to conference opponent No. 3 USC on Saturday.
“I think they have the complete lineup where they have some really strong outside shooters and also a pretty prolific set,” SJSU head coach Beth Harberts said. “Once we’re able to clean up our reaction times and clean up some unforced turnovers it’ll be a better game moving forward.”
SJSU finished the game with six turnovers, with five separate Spartans committing a turnover at least once during the match.
The Spartans were out-scored by every step of the way by the Sun Devils, ending the first half of the match down 7-3 and allowing six goals in the third quarter to increase the lead to 13-5, shutting the door on any possibility of a comeback.
Sophomore 2-meter Bridget Cranley led the Spartans in scoring, recording three goals on three shot attempts.
Cranley’s scoring total moves up to 23 goals this season and the fifth time this season she finishes a match with three or more goals.
Junior attacker Darcy Spark continued her strong season with two goals, scoring once in both the first and fourth quarter of the match.
Spark finished the match 2-for-6 in goals attempted and notched two steals.
Junior utilitywoman Emma Ruzic and sophomore driver Rachel Williams also added to the Spartans offense, each scoring once during the match.
“[It was a] tough game, but overall a tremendous experience for what we’re trying to build as a program,” Harberts said.
The Spartans entered their conference matchup weekend on a five-match winning streak after losing their first six matches to start the season.
The loss puts them at the bottom of the MPSF conference, with the next opponent on their schedule being Stanford.
Stanford currently sits at the top of the MPSF conference with one conference win and has yet to lose a game this season, with seven wins overall.
The Spartans will have five days to regroup and strategize before taking on the conference leader.
“Overall we’re still working on our team objectives in terms of balance in our frontcourt and making sure that we’re looking for that extra pass,” Harberts said.
The Spartans will take on Stanford at 1 p.m Saturday, Feb. 28 at the SRAC.
