SAN DIEGO – No. 19 ranked San Diego State water polo wrapped up its first home weekend of Golden Coast Conference (GCC) play with a decisive 17-10 win over the No. 25 Pacific Tigers on Sunday afternoon at Aztec Aquaplex.
The Aztecs’ offense was led by Mimi Stoupas who finished with a team-high five goals to go along the six she tallied on Friday. In addition to Stoupas, Sammi Byers and Poppy Phillips each finished with a hat trick, while Hannah Bell, Sydney Gish, Megan Holcomb, Shannon Murphy, Ioanna Petiki and Claudia Valdes scored a goal apiece.
SDSU (10-7, 3-1 GCC) got 14 assists on its 17 scores, led by four from Valdes who moved into solo fourth place on the program’s career assist list with 163 and is 17 shy of Sarah Brady (2008-11) who finished her Aztec career with 180. Byers added three assists to go along with her hat trick, while Murphy and Petiki set up two goals each.
In her second start among seven appearances, freshman Kyla Pranajaya (2-1), who played the entire 32 minutes, stopped a season-best 12 shots, allowed 10 in, and had a steal to earn the victory.
Shannon Murphy won three of the four sprints, including the open sprint and then scored the first goal of the game at 6:11 to give the Scarlet and Black a quick 1-0 lead, but the Tigers (7-6, 1-1 GCC) responded with a power-play goal at the 5:28 mark to even this up 1-1. Stoupas made it 2-1 at 3:57 with Murphy being credited with an assist and Holcomb added to the advantage on the power play to make it 3-1 at 2:53. Valdes had the assist on the Holcomb tally and the teams went to the second period with the Aztecs up 3-1. SDSU was successful on three of its six shots in the first eight minutes and scored on one of its two power-play opportunities.
Murphy won the sprint to start the second quarter and Stoupas, on an assist from Petiki, got her second goal of the game, just 15 seconds in, to make it 4-1. UOP cut its deficit to 4-2 and then 4-3 with successive power-play tallies at 5:25 and 4:20. The Aztecs were whistled for a penalty shot at 2:56, but Pranajaya stopped the attempt to maintain the lead, and 19 seconds later, set up by Holcomb, Petiki bent the net to make it 5-3.
The teams then traded goals with UOP scoring at 2:19 and Valdes answering to make it 6-4 with 1:54 on the clock. Stoupas got the hat trick at 1:33 on a Murphy assist to make it a three-goal advantage 7-4, but 16 seconds later, Pacific responded and then scored again with 19 seconds on the clock to send the teams to the intermission with SDSU up 7-6.
Coming out of the break, the teams traded the first two goals of the second half. Stoupas picked up her fourth goal, at 7:07, on Byers second assist of the contest, but UOP responded 21 seconds later to make it 8-7. Stoupas then tallied her fifth goal, on Valdes’ second assists, and Byers got into the scoring column, on a set up from Phillips, to make it 10-7 with 5:24 to go in the third. After a Pacific timeout, Byers struck again, assisted by Petiki, at 4:07 and it was 11-7. The Tigers trimmed their deficit to three goals with a score at the 3:28 mark and then to two, 11-9 with 2:05 on the clock.
After Phillips drew an exclusion at 1:54, she made the Tigers pay with a goal three seconds later. After a quick UOP tally, Phillips scored again, this time on a penalty shot at 1:14 to give SDSU its three-goal lead back, 13-10, which was the score heading to the final eight minutes.
SDSU held Pacific scoreless in the final period and got the initial score of the quarter at 6:55 from Gish, who was set up by Valdes’ third assist to give the Aztecs a 14-10 lead. After Avery Sullivan drew an exclusion at 2:28, Byers, on another Valdes assist, scored 18 seconds later on the ensuing powerplay and then assisted on a Bell strike with 1:23 left on the clock to put the game out of reach. Adding insult to injury, Phillips scored with one second on the clock for the final of 17-10.
Each team produced 29 shots, but San Diego State was successful on 17 (58.6 percent) compared to 10 (34.5 percent) for UOP and despite putting the Tigers on the power play 13 times, finished 4-of-6 (66.7 percent) to 5-of-13 (38.5 percent).
Pacific had two players with hat tricks, Ella Cowan and Alicia Petkov, to pace its offensive attack while Maja Lizy Dulic saw 17 shots sail past her and only stopped five in taking the loss.
Pacific: 1-5-4-0 - 10
San Diego State: 3-4-6-4 - 17
Pacific Goals: Cowan (3), Petkov (3), Crum (1), Ikonomou (1), Jacobson (1), Marsinach Ortega (1),
San Diego State Goals: Stoupas (5), Byers (3), Phillips (3), Bell (1), Gish (1), Holcomb (1), Murphy (1), Petiki (1), Valdes (1)
Pacific Saves: Dulic (5)
San Diego State Saves: Pranajaya (12)
The Aztecs return to the Aquaplex in their GCC home finale on Thursday, March 5 against Azusa Pacific. The game is scheduled to start at 2 p.m.