SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Senior Katie Ratcliff totaled four goals, freshman Claudia Valdes picked up a hat trick and the San Diego State water polo team split its first two games of the 2023 season. SDSU defeated the Cal State Fullerton Titans 12-4 but fell to No. 3 UCLA 21-5 on the first day of the UCSB Winter Invite on the campus of UC Santa Barbara.
No. 21 San Diego State 12, Cal State Fullerton 4
San Diego State got goals from seven players, including a hat trick from freshman Claudia Valdes, and cruised to a 12-4 win over the Cal State Fullerton Titans, to notch its first victory of the season and the first for interim head coach Dana Ochsner.
After the Titans scored the initial goal of the game, Vales scored the equalizer with 6:22 to go in the opening period, her first goal as an Aztec. Just over three minutes later Samantha Loughlin made it 2-1 SDSU with her first goal of the campaign.
Cal State Fullerton tied it at 2-2 with 1:41 to play in the first, but with 35 seconds remaining freshman Shannon Murphy picked up the first goal of her college career, giving San Diego State a 3-2 lead after eight minutes.
In the second quarter the Aztecs added three more goals. Amanda Legaspi tallied her first as a member of the Scarlet and Black, followed by Murphy's second of the game and senior Katie Ratcliff wrapped up the run with her first of the game to send the teams to the intermission with SDSU holding a 6-2 lead.
The Titans got the initial two goals coming out of the break, to slice the lead to 6-4 with just over five minutes to go in the period, but from there it was all Aztecs.
Klara Goldstein scored with 1:48 to go to send the contest to the final period with San Diego State up 7-4.
In the fourth quarter, the Aztecs scored five times. Brooke Lee found the back of the cage at the 6:23 mark and 36 seconds later Legaspi tallied her second to make it a 9-4 game.
In the last 1:14, SDSU added three more tallies. Ratcliff picked up her second and then in the final 38 seconds Valdes added her second and third goals of the game.
Cal State Fullerton: 2-0-2-0 - 4
San Diego State: 3-3-1-5 - 12
Cal State Fullerton Goals: Soloczano (2), Bates (1), Zaretskiy (1)
San Diego State Goals: Valdes (3), Lagaspi (2), Murphy (2), Ratcliff (2), Goldstein (1), Lee (1), Loughlin (1)
No. 3 UCLA 21, No. 21 San Diego State 5
Senior Katie Ratcliff led the Aztecs against No. 3 UCLA with a pair of goals, but the Bruins proved to be too much in defeating SDSU 21-5.
After a minute of action, UCLA scored the game's first goal, but Aztecs came right back down the pool and answered on a senior center Danni Croteau goal to even the score 1-1. But from there things went all UCLA's way. They scored eight unanswered goals and had a 9-1 lead after eight minutes.
With 3:23 to play in the half, Katie Ratcliff, a senior, found the back of the cage to make it 9-2, but the Bruins answered with three goals in the last 1:14 of the half and took a 12-2 lead at the break.
Coming out of halftime, UCLA scored the first goal of the third quarter and Jessica Leckich got it back for SDSU with 4:14 to play in the period. With the score 15-3, Klara Goldstein, a sophomore out of Redondo Beach, Calif., scored her first goal of the season and the eighth of her college career. The teams went to the fourth with the Aztecs down 16-4.
In the last period, with nine seconds to play, Ratcliff tallied her second goal of the game, and as the clock expired, the score was 21-5 UCLA.
UCLA: 9-3-4-5 - 21
San Diego State: 1-2-1-1 - 5
UCLA Goals: Ayala (1), Kuesis (1), McMurray (1), Miller (1), Myers (1), Allen (2), Green (2), Lineback (2), Drake (3), Smith (3), Johnson (4),
San Diego State Goals: Ratcliff (2), Croteau (1), Goldstein (1), Leckich (1)
San Diego State wraps up play at the UCSB Winter Invitational on Sunday with games against No. 15 Wagner and Pomona-Pitzer at 8 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. PT, respectively.