SAN DIEGO –The No. 19 ranked San Diego State water polo, led by six strikes from Mimi Stoupas, scored the first three goals of the game and never took its foot off the pedal in a 20-4 shellacking of the Santa Clara Broncos on Friday afternoon at Aztec Aquaplex in SDSU’s Golden Coast Conference (GCC) home opener.
In addition to Stoupas' goals, four other Aztecs scored multiple times. Shannon Murphy had a hat trick, and Hannah Bell, Sydney Gish and Claudia Valdes each bent the net twice. Lucy Bullock, Megan Holcomb, Ioanna Petiki, Poppy Phillips and Julianne Stark added a goal apiece.
With one assist, Valdes has 159 for her career and ties Anique Hermann for fourth place on the program’s career assist list.
In goal, the Aztecs (9-7, 2-1 GCC) played each of their three net minders. Mandy Lagerlof (8-4) started and played for the first 16 minutes, surrendering one goal and making two saves to earn the victory. Kyla Pranajaya was in the cage for the third period and had six saves while letting in three goals. Tiarre Ahovelo played the final quarter and had two saves in shutting out the Broncos.
The Aztecs jumped out to a 3-0 lead on strikes from Gish at 6:46, Bullock at 6:10 and Murphy with 3:34 to play in the opening eight minutes. Santa Clara (SCU (2-12, 0-2 GCC) got on the board at the 3:13 mark, but SDSU picked up the final two scores of the frame, from Bell at 2:46, and Stark with 1:33 to go to take a 5-1 advantage into the second quarter.
Valdes got her first of the game, just 25 seconds into the second, and the Stoupas onslaught started with 5:44 to play before the half to make it 7-1. The Broncos got one of the goals back with a tally at 4:23, but Gish and Stoupas, at 4:10 and 2:13, respectively, scored to make it 9-2. The final goal of the half belonged to SCU, which found the back of the net with 1:33 to go to make it 9-3 at the break.
Coming out of halftime, SDSU used surgical precision to push its advantage to 10 goals, 13-3, starting with back-to-back tallies from Stoupas, at 6:52, to complete the hat trick, and 6:20, and then from Valdes, at the 3:50 mark, and Bell with 2:38 to go in the third. Santa Clara’s final goal of the period, and the game, came with 25 seconds to go and the teams went to the final eight minutes with SDSU comfortably ahead, 13-4.
The fourth quarter was all Aztecs. They scored seven unanswered goals starting with Stoupas, who bent the net 15 seconds in, and 30 seconds later, at 6:15, Murphy scored the first of back-to-back goals, with the second coming at 5:59. Stoupas scored for the final time with 4:37 on the clock. Phillips got into the scoring column at the 4:04 mark to make it 18-4. The final two tallies for the Scarlet and Black were produced by Petiki, at 3:38, and Holcomb made it an even 20 goals with 2:37 to go.
SDSU shot 60.6 percent for the game, scoring on 20 of its 33 shots while limiting the Broncos to just 17.4 percent (4-of-23), and on the power play the Aztecs score on three of its four opportunities (75.0 percent), but held Santa Clara to just 1-of-13 (7.7 percent).
Santa Clara got single goals from four players and Haley Tassell stopped eight shots but saw 18 get by her in 28 minutes. Fritzi Warneke played for the final four minutes and surrendered goals on both shots she saw.
Santa Clara: 1-2-1-0 - 4
San Diego State: 5-4-4-7 - 20
Santa Clara Goals: Maccabe (1), Rizof (1), Romano (1), Tarbet (1)
San Diego State Goals: Stoupas (6), Murphy (2), Bell (2), Gish (2), Valdes (2), Bullock (1), Holcomb (1), Petiki (1), Phillips (1), Stark (1)
Santa Clara Saves: Tassell (8)
San Diego State Saves: Pranajaya (6), Ahovelo (2), Lagerlof (2)
The Aztecs are back in the pool against No. 25 Pacific on Sunday, March 1, in another GCC matchup. The game is scheduled to get underway at 1 p.m. PT at the Aquaplex.