LA JOLLA, Calif. – The No. 21 San Diego State water polo team put five goals in the cage in the first quarter and never looked back in a 9-7 victory against the No. 24 CSUN Matadors on Sunday morning at the final day of the 2023 Triton Invitational.
No. 21 San Diego State 9, No. 24 CSUN 7
San Diego State (3-5), building on its good start against No. 12 UC Davis on Saturday, scored five times in the first quarter against CSUN and the never trailed to earn a 9-7 win at the Canyonview Pool on the campus of UC San Diego, on the final day of the 2023 Triton Invitational.
Seven Aztecs scored the team's nine goals, led by two scores each from sophomore Rose Kanemy and senior Katie Ratcliff. The Scarlet and Black also got single goals from senior Samantha Loughlin, junior Kendall Houck, sophomore Amanda Chambers, and freshmen Hannah Bell and Claudia Valdes.
Ratcliff, a product of San Diego's Valhalla High School, put the first two goals on the board, at the 7:09 and 5:40 marks, to give SDSU a lead it would never relinquish. After a CSUN goal, Kanemy, at the 4:42 mark, had the first of three unanswered strikes for the Aztecs. Loughlin, who competed in high school at Santa Margarita High in San Clemente, Calif., followed Kanemy with her tally with 3:02 to play in the period and Chambers, from Victoria, British Columbia, scored with 2:34 left to make it a 5-1 lead. The Matadors answered with 25 seconds to play to send the game to the second quarter with San Diego State holding a 5-2 lead.
Each team scored once in the second quarter to give the Aztecs a 6-3 lead at the break. Up 5-3 and with 3:53 to go before intermission, Kanemy, from Montreal, Canada, scored her second of the game to give SDSU a three-goal lead heading to halftime.
Coming out of the half, CSUN cut the lead to 6-4, but Bell, out of Auckland, New Zealand, answered with 5:49 to play in the quarter to get the lead back to three, 7-4, and Houck, who prepped at St. Francis High in Roseville, Calif., made it 8-4 with a goal at the 2:36 mark. The Matadors picked up the final two tallies of the period to send the game to the final eight minutes with SDSU up 8-6.
CSUN cut the margin to a single goal with 6:37 to go in the game, but San Diego State got the insurance goal with 2:54 to play from Valdes, who came to The Mesa from Madrid, Spain, and the Aztecs cruised to the two-goal win.
SDSU used two goalies in the victory. Tiaare Ahovelo, another product out of Auckland, New Zealand, played the first half, made a pair of saves and let in three goals, while Mandy Lagerlof, who prepped at Irvine (Calif.) High School, had three saves and surrendered four goals playing the final 16 minutes.
CSUN: 2-1-3-1 - 7
San Diego State: 5-1-2-1- 9
CSUN Goals: Telek (2), Bacoyanis (1), Hovanesian (1), Matkovich (1), Pal (1), Sandhagen (1),
San Diego State Goals: Kanemy (2), Ratcliff (2), Bell (1), Chambers (1), Houck (1), Loughlin (1), Valdes (1)