March 21, 2005
SAN DIEGO -
SDSU Water Polo Weekly Release
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SDSU Looks To Rebound From Loss When It Travels To Hawaii For The Aloha Rainbow Classic
* Coming off of Sunday's loss at Long Beach State, San Diego State (9-10, 2-6 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) will look to get back into the win column when it takes on Cal Baptist (11-4) and Canada at the Aloha Rainbow Classic in Hawaii.
The Aztecs will take on the Lancers at 2:30 HT on March 26 and follow it up with two exhibitions against Team Canada on March 27. The pair of games against Canada are scheduled for 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. HT starts.
After the weekend's three contests, SDSU will remain in Hawaii for an MPSF game on March 30 against Hawaii. That game is slated for a 4:30 p.m. HT start.
Weekly Recap
* After playing five games in four days two weeks ago, San Diego State had a week off before hitting the road and taking on Long Beach State Sunday afternoon.
The Aztecs were shutout, 4-0, in the first half thanks to a pair of Long Beach State goals by Cassie Azevedo and goals from Drue Wawrzynski and Robyn Gordin.
But Stacy Werner scored on SDSU's first two possessions of the third quarter to bring the Aztecs to within two. Later, Rachel Serna found the back of the net to cut the 49er advantage to one going into the fourth quarter.
In the final period, Long Beach State received a second goal from Gordin to make the score 5-3. Werner recorded her second hat trick of the season when she put one past 49er goalie Bri Hawkins to pull the Aztecs within a goal, but LBSU's Jeanine Jackson scored with 1:04 remaining to end the threat.
Elana Cervantes added a goal of her own with 48 seconds left to give the game its final score.
Goalkeeper Sarah Kilgore made seven saves, including three in the fourth quarter, in a losing effort for the Aztecs.
Serna Says Score
* Junior driver Rachel Serna leads the team in scoring through 19 games of the 2005 season. So far, Serna has scored 35 goals and has netted a goal in 17 of 19 games this season.
In 2004, the Coronado native tallied just 15 goals in 70 attempts. For her career, Serna had 23 goals in her two seasons on Montezuma Mesa.
Scouting the Lancers
* Cal Baptist comes into the game with SDSU on a bit of a roll having won its last eight contests. In those eight games, the Lancers have averaged 9.5 goals a game while only allowing 5.3. During their winning streak, they have beat MPSF schools and SDSU opponents, Pacific and Cal State Northridge, along with Bucknell and Pomona-Pitzer.
The Lancers have six players who have recorded double-digit scoring seasons thus far, but junior Cheryl Ogden leads the team with 41 goals.
In goal for Cal Baptist is sophomore Kasey Weaver who has made 162 saves to date.
Series History vs. Cal Baptist
* The Aztecs hold a 7-2 all-time series advantage against the Lancers. SDSU has won five in a row in the series, including last year's season-opening 6-5 triumph at the UCSD Invitational (Feb. 7) and its 11-2 victory in San Diego (April 24).
See-Saw Season
* After defeating Princeton March 13 and losing Sunday at Long Beach State, the win one, lose one trend epitomizes the 2005 season. This year has been so up and down it's comparable to a see-saw. The Aztecs have not won more than two in a row this season and have been winners of two straight only twice this year. They did it to begin the season with victories over Cal State Bakersfield and UC Davis and did it versus Michigan and at Pacific. Besides those two cases, it's been one up and one down for the Aztecs all year long.
Road Warriors
* Before hosting UC Irvine March 10, the Aztecs had never played their first 13 games on the road to start the season. The last time an SDSU team played nearly as many on the road as this year's team has was back in 1999 when it played it first 11 away from America's Finest City.
So far this season, 14 of the team's 19 games have been away from the Kroc Community Center and it doesn't get much easier with a road trip to Hawaii coming up this week. But after the trip to the nation's 50th state, the Aztecs return home for three, before heading to Long Beach for the LBSU Invitational and then closing out the regular season with two home games versus UCSD and Arizona State.
Aztecs In The State Of Hawaii
* The Aztecs are 1-4 all-time in the state of Hawaii and will be looking to reverse the trend this week. SDSU has made the trip to the nation's 50th state on three previous occasions.
Back in 1999, the Aztecs played in the Hawai'i Invitational and went 1-2, losing to Southern California, defeating Long Beach State and losing to the host Hawai'i.
SDSU also lost regular season games in 2001 (L, 4-9) and in 2003 (L, 3-4) to Hawai'i.