By Jessica Jimenez — Staff Writers
San Jose State men’s water polo was unable to defend the pool against UC Santa Barbara dropping its game, 13-9.
SJSU (7-16, 1-3 GCC) took many shots to the goal, but UCSB junior goalkeeper Tiago Bonchristiano defended the net allowing one Spartan goal by senior driver Marc Weber to slip through by the end of the first quarter.
UCSB(19-8, 4-1 GCC) went on to score three more goals and did not allow any SJSU goals to hit the net.
Sophomore 2-meter defender Niels Hofmeijer saw the mistakes the team made in the first two quarters.
“We started off pretty decent with a 2-1 score from Sanat Barbara,” Hofmeijer said. “Then in the second quarter we had a breakdown and they scored a couple of goals back-to-back.”
Opening up the third quarter, the Gauchos maintained their goal-scoring momentum as they put up two more goals for the team making the score, 7-1.
On an even-strength play, Spartan freshman attacker Ethan Koch aggressively struck the Gauchos net.
Senior utility player Giacomo Lovatelli scored one for the Spartans on a powerplay.
Less than a minute later, Lovatelli sprinted his way to the UCSB net and put another one up for the team.
With an exclusion on Gaucho senior utility player Ivan Gvozdanovic, Spartan sophomore driver Adam Bado was granted a penalty shot.
He was successful and ended the third quarter with SJSU trailing behind 10-5.
By this point in the game, sophomore goalkeeper Yahav Fire saved eight UCSB goals from reaching the SJSU cage.
Trying to maintain the goal-scoring momentum, the Spartans opened up the fourth quarter with a successful shot to the net by Hofmeijer.
It was senior two-meter defender Finn Pardon’s two goals that ended the momentum for the Spartans in which they fell behind ending the game 13-9.
Pardon felt that helping his team is always a great feeling.
“It felt pretty good although I wish I could’ve done it earlier on,” Pardon said. “That way we could’ve had the momentum earlier and they couldn’t have gone up 5-1 on us.”
The referees were on a roll issuing yellow cards to both Gaucho and Spartan head coaches and players.
Head Coach Bruce Watson feels the team did work together sufficiently overall.
“We had three good quarters,” Watson said. “Unfortunately, the first quarter wasn’t good but that’s what happens with you have a young team.”
SJSU will head across town to Santa Clara University for a Wednesday afternoon game at 4 p.m.
Follow Jessica on Twitter @JessicaJim06
