The Long Beach State men’s water polo team failed to build on their two wins earlier in the week, falling to UC Santa Barbara 10-7 on Saturday at the Lindgren Aquatics Center.
The 49ers had the lead at the beginning of the match, but struggled to keep up with the Gauchos in the third quarter. The 49ers started the second half by scoring the first goal to take a 5-4 lead, but UCSB locked in on defense the rest of the way.
The Gauchos opened up the game in the second half and scored five unanswered goals to take a 9-5 lead heading into the fourth quarter. Freshman Austin Stevenson said the 49ers would need to focus more on the defensive end going forward.
“We need to get more stops on defense and get more field blocks,” Stevenson said.
Redshirt freshman Chandler Kaltenbach was the first to get on the board, and was followed by senior Dimitrios Lappas; giving the 49er a 2-0 lead against the Gauchos.
The Gauchos came back with two goals, tying the game at 2-2 before LBSU freshman Keegan Wicken gave them the lead over the Gauchos to end the first quarter. The second quarter was a defensive battle, but the Gauchos managed to tie the game at four before the end of the half.
“We couldn’t get stops on their power plays,” head coach Gavin Arroyo said.
After their three-point first quarter, the 49ers were unable to score more than 2 goals in each of the successive quarters. UCSB head coach Wolf Wigo said that was part of the game plan.
“We wanted to stress our defense and not get to many exclusions, and we actually didn’t do the best job of that,” Wigo said. “But, fortunately our offense was working pretty well and we were able to shoot our way out of our not-so-great defense.”
LBSU (7-10) opened up their three-game home stand with a pair of wins against Occidental College and UC San Diego on Thursday.
Up next for LBSU is a matchup with Whittier College on Thursday at the Lindgren Aquatics Center at 7 p.m.