LV ousts CMA with last-second goal
Campus Times
December 6, 2002
The University of La Verne men's water polo team capped off a successful
2002 season, finishing sixth at the Western Water Polo Association Championship
with a 1-2 record at the University of California San Diego on Nov. 22-23.
The WWPA Championship, an eight-team tournament with participants reaching
as Far West as Hawaii, hosted only two Division III schools-ULV and the
University of Redlands.
Going into the WWPA Tournament, ULV occupied the eighth seed, while
Redlands captured one spot higher at seventh seed as the Southern California
Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion.
ULV's final match of the tournament was played on Saturday, Nov. 23.
In a rematch of last year's consolation game, which the Aggies of UC Davis
won, the Leopards mounted a valiant effort against the sixth seed in this
year's consolation game, sticking with the Aggies throughout the contest
for an 8-6 loss.
Jason Kidwell led the Leopards in scoring in the match, accumulating
a hat trick.
To get to the consolation match, ULV had to face fifth-seeded Chaminade
at 5 p.m. on Friday.
The last match-up between these two squads this season was on Sept.
15 and ended in a one-sided 17-7 Leopard loss.
Friday's match was a much closer battle, as the first half scoreboard
showed a 5-3 ULV lead.
By the end of the fourth quarter, the Silverswords had overcome the
deficit and tied the game at nine.
With only a few ticks remaining on the game clock, junior Jason Walters
took the ball just outside the Silversword goal and blasted a behind-the-back
shot past Chaminade goalie Chris Howard to score the last-second, go-ahead
goal-Walters' fourth of the game- and send ULV to the consolation bracket
final.
"I just tried to get it towards the goal," Walters said. "I
didn't even know it went in until afterwards."
Because the Leopards held the bottom seed in the tournament, they were
forced to face top-seeded UCSD in their first-round match, played on Nov.
22.
After the first half of the UCSD match, the score was 5-2 in favor of
UCSD. Even though UCSD boasted a three-goal lead, ULV was far from being
eliminated from the contest.
"For the first half, we stuck with them," sophomore Owen Barrett
said.
But two goals in the final quarter were not enough for the Leopards,
though, as UCSD rode its surplus of substitutions to a 9-4 victory.
Barrett, who tallied one goal in the match, said the Leopards had "no
chance" in the second half because of UCSD's abundance of substitutes.
"They had a line change whenever they wanted," Barrett said.
The Leopards' loss to UCSD was definitely not something to hang their
heads about, though, as the Tritons eventually went on to defeat Loyola
Marymount by a score of 5-4 in the championship match; this pairing was
a rematch of last year's championship, which Loyola won, 4-2.
Overall, the sixth-place finish in the tournament was two spots above
the Leopards' seed entering the weekend. It also earned ULV SCIAC and Division
III bragging rights as the Leopard squad finished one slot above Redlands
in the tournament.
"We played better than most people expected," Barrett said.
The Leopards still expressed some disappointment in their performance
at the tournament, as their goal was to finish one spot better, Walters
said.
"We would have liked to beat Davis, but we were happy," Walters
said.
"I think we could have done better," Barrett said. "It
could have gone either way in most of the games we played."
Junior Robert Casillas led the Leopards in scoring throughout the tournament,
accumulating six of the Leopards' 20 goals. Casillas was honored with second
team all-tournament for his performance.
The WWPA Tournament wraps up the Leopard season, in which ULV obtained
an overall record of 19-10 and a second-place SCIAC finish.
"We didn't do what we wanted [this season]," Walters said,
"but we did better than people thought we would."