FRESNO, Calif. – The No. 13-ranked San Diego State water polo team left no doubt of their intentions early in its game on Saturday evening at Fresno Pacific University (FPU). SDSU scored the first five goals of the contest against the Sunbirds and never looked back for their seventh win in their last eight games, defeating FPU 16-4 at Sunnyside Aquatics Center.
The scoring for San Diego State (15-8) was led by Poppy Phillips, who bent the net a team-high four times, and has scored 11 goals in the last three games. Sydney Gish picked up a hat trick, her ninth of the year, and Julianne Stark totaled a pair of goals in her second multi-goal effort of the season. Natalia Barrot, Hannah Bell, Lucy Bullock, Sammi Byers, Megan Holcomb, Aiyana Mendoza and Mimi Stoupas contributed a goal each.
Mandy Lagerlof started the game in goal, played for the first 16 minutes, and made five saves against a pair of Sunbirds goals. Her .714 save percentage marks the fifth time this season stopping at least 60.0 percent of the shots she has faced. Lagerlof also added a steal to improve her season record to 10-4. Tiaare Ahovelo entered the game to start the second half and in the final two quarters stopped three shots and allowed two in.
Shannon Murphy and Phillips led the team with a pair of assists among seven Aztecs who set up goals. Claudia Valdes, with one assist in the game and now 178 for her career, inched closer to Sarah Brady and her 180 career assists, which rank No. 3 on the program’s all-time assist list.
Gish opened the scoring for SDSU at 6:13 and, 38 seconds later, Phillips made it 2-0. Phillips added to the lead on her second of the initial eight minutes to push the advantage to 3-0 with 4:28 on the clock. She completed the hat trick at the 3:06 mark after being set up by Natalia Barrot. Her three successive strikes came in 2:29 of game action and made it 4-0 Aztecs.
Stark scored and it was 5-0 with 2:25 on the clock. Fresno Pacific halted the run with its initial tally, on a penalty shot with 2:01 to go. Byers completed the first quarter by scoring on the powerplay and it was 6-1 after one period.
FPU picked up the first goal of the second quarter, on a power play at 6:44, to draw to 6-2, but the final three goals of the half, scored in 69 seconds, belonged to the Scarlet and Black. Stark struck for her second of the game at 3:02 and was followed by scores from Barrot, at 2:28, and Bullock, who finished the run at 1:53, to send the game to the intermission with SDSU leading 9-2.
The Aztecs scoring spurt continued coming out of the break, scoring four times in just under three minutes. Gish, on a penalty shot at 7:44, made it 10-2, then completed the hat trick at 6:39. Stoupas pushed it to 12-2 and Mendoza to 13-2, each score set up by Shannon Murphy, at 6:06 and 5:18, respectively.
The Sunbirds stopped SDSU with a goal at 4:15, but Holcomb got it back at 3:26 to make the score 14-3 and then Bell bent the net at 1:10 and it was 15-3, which was the score as the team’s headed for the final period.
The game went back and forth in the first half of the last eight minutes. Phillips scored her fourth goal, with 4:38 left in the contest, to make it 16-3. FPU got its fourth and the final goal of the game with 1:19 on the clock for the 16-4 total.
Fresno Pacific’s Sophia DeRollo scored two goals, a team high, and in the net, Evalena Filippi took the loss surrendering 16 goals against eight saves.
San Diego State: 6-3-6-1 - 16
Fresno Pacific: 1-1-1-1 - 4
San Diego State Goals: Phillips (4), Gish (3), Stark (2), Barrot (1), Bell (1), Bullock (1), Byers (1), Holcomb (1), Mendoza (1), Stoupas (1)
Fresno Pacific Goals: DeRollo (2), Azevedo (1), Cook (1),
San Diego State Saves: Lagerlof (5), Ahovelo (3)
Fresno Pacific Saves: Filippi (8)