Karina Rodriguez
Sports Editor
The men’s water polo team started off its Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference season with a loss against the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, 20-11, Saturday at the La Verne Aquatic Center.
Head coach Robert Echeverria said he believed the team played well despite their disadvantage, as Pomona-Pitzer has almost twice as many players as La Verne.
“I think when you’re playing a team like Pomona-Pitzer that has 35 guys on the roster, all at the same level, it’s definitely a challenge,” Echeverria said. “But you know, no excuses.”
Echeverria said Pomona-Pitzer wearing down the La Verne players contributed to the loss.
“I think where we kind of struggled was when they started to rotate different lines and just kind of wear us down and then as fatigue kicked in, we started to make some weird choices,” Echeverria said.
The Leopards began strong with three goals at the beginning of the first quarter.
Junior utility player Timothy Robles gave La Verne its first goal at 7:40 in the first quarter.
Robles scored two goals for ULV in the first quarter, but has his eye on improving the team’s defense..
“I think we just got to clean up a lot of things of defense and bad passes and stuff like
that,” Robles said.
After Robles’ second goal, Pomona-Pitzer made six consecutive goals.
Junior goalkeeper Henry De Luna felt that while his team did work hard to defend the cage, he thinks that once La Verne can control the opposing team’s drives, it’ll put them in a stronger position.
“I think just being able to stop getting beat on drives,” De Luna said. “I think we had a lot of exclusions which fed a lot into the other team as to why they were able to score so many goals.”
De Luna had 12 saves, including a penalty shot.
La Verne scored twice in the second quarter – a goal by sophomore center defender Vaughn Freiermuth and a penalty goal by junior utility player Josh Lamberton.
The first half ended with the Sagehens up, 10-6.
During the third quarter, junior utility player Zachariah Barclay scored an advantage goal, narrowing the gap to 10-7.
Lamberton scored two more goals for La Verne during the third quarter.
Pomona-Pitzer scored five consecutive goals to end the third quarter, 16-9.
The fourth quarter started off with another goal by Freiermuth to bring the score up 16-10.
Four consecutive goals by Pomona-Pitzer widened the gap to 20-10.
Lamberton made the final goal of the game to bring the final score 20-11.
Lamberton, who scored five goals during the game.
“My offense was pretty good but I do need to keep my head up while swimming. Some of my teammates need help and if I am swimming with my head down then I can’t really help them,” Lamberton said.
After beating Caltech, 18-11, on Wednesday, the team is 6-6 overall and 1-1 in SCIAC.
The Leopards compete in the Gary Troyer Tournament in Orange and Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday, with games against Fresno Pacific, Ottawa-Arizona, Augustana and UC Merced.
Karina Rodriguez can be reached at karina.rodriguez3@laverne.edu.
Karina Rodriguez is a senior journalism major with a concentration in broadcast journalism, and editor-in-chief of the Campus Times. She has previously served as sports editor, social media editor, arts editor and a staff writer.
Antonio Ceniceros is a senior photography major and a staff photographer for the Campus Times and La Verne Magazine. He is also the lead photographer and social media manager for the University of La Verne’s football team, and currently specializes in sports, concert, and fashion photography. You can find his work on Instagram at @flicksbycinco..
