By james art IRVINE, California — The men’s water polo team No. 16 of UC Santa Barbara pushed the No. 9 UC Irvine in four overtime periods on Saturday, but ultimately fell 14-13 to the defending Big West Champions. Levi Lentin was terrific despite the score, making a career-high 17 saves, including stopping both of the Anteaters’ five-yard penalty kicks in the game. Dom Brown and Danilo Dragovic they each scored shorthanded goals late and were two of five Gauchos to score multiple times on the day.
BY SENIOR COACH WOLF WIGO
“We had our best game of the year,” said Vigo. “Our defense was very strong and we had a lot of great natural scoring and strong team play when we got a power play. If we keep playing like this we will have a very strong finish to the season. Levi was great in goal and we had a very balanced attack.”
HOW IT HAPPENED
Luke Reduti scored on Santa Barbara’s first possession and Brock Zamanian scored a minute later to put the Gauchos up by two, and Lentin made his first penalty save of the afternoon to keep UC Irvine off the board in the first two minutes. The Anteaters eventually came back to take a 3-2 lead before that Luke Bachler tied the game again with 12 seconds left in the first quarter. Santa Barbara started the second quarter even stronger, outscoring UC Irvine 3-1 in the frame. Brown and Zamanian each scored at even strength, then Dragovic took advantage of the Gauchos’ first power play of the game to put Santa Barbara up 6-3.
The Gauchos led 6-4 at halftime and thanks to an Adam Giennis penalty and a Luke Bachler powerplay goal, they led 8-5 midway through the third quarter. Santa Barbara could only hold off Irvine’s offense for so long, and a 4-0 run for the Anteaters put the hosts back in front early in the fourth. From the seven-minute mark of the fourth quarter onward, the teams traded goals, starting with Kai Ross tying score.
When the Anteaters scored to retake the lead, that was it Nico Furno in charge for the Gauchos, then Lentin saved his second penalty of the game to preserve the tie, but the home team again led 11-10 with a minute and a half to go. Thirty seconds later, Brown came in for the Gauchos, beating the shot clock buzzer with his second goal of the day to tie the game at 11 and force overtime.
The Anteaters scored first in overtime and, despite Redutei’s equalizer, took the lead midway through overtime. The score remained 13-12 in favor of the home team until the final moments when Dragovic scored with four seconds left to send the game into overtime with a golden goal. Neither team scored in the first three minutes of the sudden-victory period, but the home team scored the decisive goal 24 seconds into the second golden frame.
NEXT
The Gauchos play their final away game of the season next weekend, heading to La Jolla on Nov. 1 for a Friday night lights-out game against UC San Diego. Kickoff is set for 6:00 PM from the Canyonview Aquatic Center and the game will be televised live on ESPN+ with live stats available via ucsbgauchos.com.