RIVERSIDE, Calif. – No. 21 San Diego State water polo relied heavily on four of its seniors to advance to the semifinal round of the 2022 Golden Coast Conference (GCC) tournament, with an 8-7 overtime win over the Azusa Pacific Cougars at Lancer Aquatic Center on the campus of California Baptist University on Friday afternoon.
Seniors Karli Canale, Lucia Carballo and Spencer Samuel combined to score seven of the team's eight goals, with Canale and Carballo tallying the final five, including Carballo's game winner with 1:58 to go in the first three-minute overtime period. Senior goalie Raquel de Pinho stopped 18 shots and held the Cougars off the board for the final nine minutes and five seconds of regulation and all six minutes of overtime, a combined 15:05.
The game is the first to go to overtime in the GCC tournament since 7-seed Fresno Pacific defeated 6-seed California Baptist, 8-7, on April 29, 2017.
For the second time this year, SDSU and APU had to go to overtime to determine a winner. The two met just under a month ago, at the Aquaplex on March 25, and San Diego State (13-15) escaped with a 14-13 overtime win. With Friday's quarterfinal victory, the Aztecs improve to 10-1 all-time, including 3-0 in the GCC tournament, against Azusa Pacific (8-16).
With the game tied 7-7 at the end of regulation, San Diego State, the 4-seed in the tournament, took an 8-7 lead, on Carballo's second strike of the game and 15th of the season. It was the team's first and only lead in the contest. From there SDSU played stifling defense and closed out the final 4:58 to advance to the next round.
Azusa Pacific's Shyanne Rainey scored the game's opening goal, just shy of two minutes in, and Samuel got the equalizer at the 4:25 mark, but after a Cougars' goal with 3:33 to go in the first, the Aztecs would be playing catchup for the majority of the game.
APU made it 3-1 at the 1:59 mark and after Carballo's first goal of the contest, with 32 seconds left in the opening period, the game went to the second with Azusa Pacific up 3-2.
The second quarter saw each team score twice. The Cougars got the first two tallies, at 5:32 by Gabrielle Martinez and another from Montana White at 4:14 to take its biggest lead of the game, three goals, at 5-2.
From there the Aztecs took over, scoring six of the final eight goals.
Jessica Leckich made it 5-3 with 2:27 to go before the half on her 14th goal of the campaign. Canale, who led all scorers with four goals and scored them all in succession, found the back of the cage with 89 ticks left on the clock to send the game to the intermission with SDSU down 5-4.
Coming out of the break, APU's Martinez scored her second of the game to push the Cougars advantage back to two goals, 6-4. Canale's second goal, with 4:16 to play in the quarter, got it back to a one-goal game, but with 1:05 left in the third Rainey pushed it back to two goals, 7-5, in what would be APU's last offensive push.
The fourth quarter belonged to Canale. She scored 10 seconds in to make it 7-6 and then tied the game at the 6:48 mark. From there SDSU survived one ejection to send the game to two three-minute overtime periods and Carballo's game winner.
The 18 saves for de Pinho are one off her career-best of 19, which she got against Fresno State on March 27, 2021, and with the win she improves her record to 8-11 on the year. The Rio de Janeiro, Brazil native added two steals and made numerous point-blank stops to keep the Aztecs in the game while the offense was adjusting to the Azusa Pacific defense. APU's Kate Green-Jones was equally as good as de Pinho, making 14 saves and allowing eight goals, and assisting on one of the Cougars tallies.
Each team attempted 36 shots with SDSU just outshooting the Cougars 22.2 percent to 19.4 percent and on power plays, APU was successful on 2-of-9 (.222) while the Aztecs converted 1-of-8 (.125)
The Aztecs will face the winner of 1-seed Fresno State and 8-seed Cal Baptist on Saturday at 4 p.m. PT in the semifinal round of the tournament. Live stats and streaming video links will be on the team's schedule page at www.goaztecs.com.
Azusa Pacific: 3-2-2-0-0-0 – 7
San Diego State: 2-2-1-2-1-0 – 8
Azusa Pacific Goals: Martinez (2), Rainey (2), Kahahawai, Guzman Ortiz, White
San Diego State Goals: Canale (4), Carballo (2), Leckich, Samuel
Azusa Pacific Saves: Green-Jones (14)
San Diego State Saves: de Pinho (18)
-SDSU-
Seniors Key No. 21 Aztecs Win In GCC Tourney
