The Long Beach State men’s water polo team dominated Pacific 10-4, and defeated UC Irvine in a close 8-6 game over the weekend at Campus Pool.
The Beach won its sixth consecutive match and is now second in the conference right behind UCLA, a team with just one more win than the ‘Niners. The 49ers have six more regular season conference games left to finish, and goalkeeper Pavo Ljepopio said it is important to have an undefeated conference record right now.
“It meant a lot for us to go 4-0 in the [Mountain Pacific Sports Federation],” he said. “Now we can play without any stress because we have nothing to lose.”
LBSU (12-3, 4-0 MPSF) beat UCI (13-8, 1-4 MPSF) by two points, and Anteaters’ head coach Marc Hunt said he saw what contributed to his team’s loss.
“We had a lot of high-percentage shots that we missed,” he said. “Conversely, Long Beach executed where they needed to and we did not.”
After the 49ers took the lead at the start of the second quarter in Sunday’s 10-4 victory against Pacific (12-9, 0-4 MPSF), they never let up. LBSU defender Zacchary Kappos fired a shot past the Tigers’ defense and into the back of the cage, which gave the 49ers a 3-2 lead.
By halftime, Guimares had muscled through two Pacific defenders that helped give the 49ers a 5-3 lead.
Senior attacker Milos Vrzic skipped a one-hop shot into the back of the net on a counter attack, and pushed Pacific to a three-point deficit.
In the fourth-quarter, senior captain and utility Devin Mefford sealed the win for the ‘Niners by scoring his first goal of the game, giving his team a 9-4 lead.
“It’a all Rico right there,” Mefford said. “He is one of our smartest players out there, always looking for someone to hook up with the ball. If not, he’s playing center and scoring goals inside the two-meters.”
Ljepopio said it is uncommon to allow so few points against a conference team.
“We did a great job on defense,” he said. “Letting them score only four goals is a big thing against an MPSF team.”
After the game, Mefford talked about how good it felt to take both wins over the weekend.
“This has never happened before; we have never been 4-0 in MPSF since I’ve been here,” Mefford said. “It’s an awesome, great feeling.”
The 49ers will face Stanford and California on the road next Saturday and Sunday at 12 p.m.