LOS ANGELES – Battling back from a three-goal halftime deficit to tie the game 8-8 with 5:17 to play in the third quarter, the 4-seed and No. 22-ranked San Diego State water polo team was outscored by 1-seed and No. 9 ranked Loyola Marymount 8-2 in the final 13:17 and came up on the short end of a 6-11 decision in its Golden Coast Conference Tournament semifinal game on Saturday afternoon at Burns Aquatics Center.
With the loss, San Diego State (15-14) plays in the third-place game against 3-seed Pacific (13-10) on Sunday at 11 a.m. (PT).
Sammi Byers, Shannon Murphy and Mimi Stoupas each scored a team-high two goals, with Sydney Gish, Rose Kanemy, Makena Macedo, and Claudia Valdes each scoring a single goal. In the cage, Mady Lagerlof (1-2) made a season-high 12 saves against 16 goals allowed with three steals.
Kanemy, the program’s career assist leader, added three more today. The Montreal, Canada, native has 65 assists for the year, the third most in a season in program history, and is four behind Anique Hermann’s 2014 record 69 assists. In addition, Kanemy became the only player in San Diego State history to surpass the 200 assists for her career, standing at 201 heading into tomorrow’s season-finale.
The Lions scored the first goal of the contest with a powerplay strike at 7:24. But, Byers continued her strong play in the tournament with a goal 18 seconds later, on Kanemy’s first assist of the game, to make it 1-1. LMU responded with a pair of goals, the first at 6:01 and the second 5:25, to lead 3-1. Then at the 5:04 mark, Kanemy and Byers reversed roles from their first score. Kanemy scored the goal with the assist going to Byers and it was 3-2 LMU. Loyola Marymount made it 4-2 and then 5-2 on goals at 4:25 and 3:56.
Valdes drew the Scarlet and Black to within a pair of goals, 5-3, with a tally with 3:44 to play in the opening stanza and Kanemy got her second assist in the game. Then within a 16-second span, the team each put a score on the board. LMU’s came at 2:19 and the Aztecs’ Murphy answered at the 2:03 mark. Valdes assisted on Murphy’s strike and the game went to the second quarter with SDSU trailing 6-4.
Loyola Marymount (19-11) got the first score of the second on a penalty shot at 4:55 making it 7-4, but on Byers’ second goal of the game and fifth in the last two days, at 4:20, it was 7-5. Megan Holcomb assisted on the goal. The Lions responded 12 seconds later to get its advantage back to three goals, 8-5. Inside two minutes before the intermission, Lagerlof stopped a penalty shot to keep the margin to three goals as the teams went to halftime.
Coming out of the break, Stoupas sliced the lead to 8-6 on a powerplay goal at 7:29, and then Gish made it a one-goal game at 7:01 with Julianne Stark getting the assist. The Aztecs tied it at 8-8 on Stoupas’ second of the quarter and the game. The tally came at 5:17 with Kanemy notching her third assist of the contest.
Loyola Marymount ended the Aztecs’ run and the period with three straight strikes: at 4:12, 2:58 and 1:45, to regain its three-goal lead 11-8, which was the score heading into the final quarter.
The first two minutes of the fourth was tame, but then the team combined for three goals in 41 seconds. The Aztecs’ score, on Murphy’s second of the contest, came at 5:25, and was sandwiched between Lions’ scores at 5:44 and 5:03 to make it 13-9. LMU pushed it to 14-9 with 4:03 to play, 15-9 at 3:29 and then 16-9 at 1:41. Macedo ended the four-goal run with a strike, assisted by Luna Sarmiento, to make the score 16-10 with 1:02 to play. Neither team scored in the final 62 seconds and San Diego State came up five goals short.
San Diego State: 4-1-3-2 - 10
Loyola Marymount: 6-2-3-5 - 16
San Diego State Goals: Byers (2), Murphy (2), Stoupas (2), Gish, Kanemy, Valdes
Loyola Marymount Goals: Gerber (7), Arino Ruiz (3), DeMattia (2), Larson, Lopez, Magano, Nankervis
San Diego State Saves: Lagerlof (12)
Loyola Marymount Saves: Barnuevo (11)