USC
UC Santa Barbara
Top-ranked Trojans Take Home Triton Title
September 06, 2009 | Men's Water Polo
Sept. 6, 2009
LA JOLLA, CALIF. - The top-ranked USC men's water polo team sprinkled its scoring around plenty of hands on Sunday at the Triton Invitational, and wound up grabbing the tournament title with a 16-5 win over No. 7 UC Santa Barbara in the championship game this afternoon in La Jolla, Calif. The win pushes No. 1 USC out to a 4-0 start on the year as the Trojans swept through the tourney with wins over Pomona-Pitzer and Air Force yesterday and an 11-6 win over LMU this morning.
In this evening's championship game at La Jolla High School's Coggan Family Aquatic Center, the Trojans showed no sign of slipping in their fourth game in two days. In fact, USC bounced out to a 3-0 lead against UC Santa Barbara and held a 5-2 lead after the first frame thanks to five different Trojan scorers. Fourteen Trojans in all would get to the back of the net before game's end, but Peter Kurzeka was the first to get a pair of goals for USC with his early strike in the second period. USC was up 6-3 at halftime and then doubled that scoring output in the third period alone.
With goalie Joel Dennerley still in the cage, the Trojan defense allowed just one Gaucho goal while the offense piled up six more goals in the third - all from different scorers. Justin Rappel, Anthony Artukovich, Brian Boswell and Michael Rosenthal all tallied their first goals of the game while Kyle Sterling picked up his second, and USC was on top 12-4 entering the final period. Will Simon took over the cage for the fourth frame and had six saves against the Gauchos, who got just one goal past Simon as the USC offense drilled in four more, including Jon Leopold's first career goal as a Trojan.
In the final game of group play earlier in the day, LMU got the first leg up on the Trojans with an early score. USC goals from Peter Kurzeka and Kyle Sterling got the Trojans on top, and although the Lions would equalize with a 5-meter penalty shot, USC responded with a four-goal scoring run that carried the Trojans ahead 6-2 during the second period. LMU managed a score in the final second of the half to make it 6-3 USC at the buzzer, only to see the Trojans get back ahead by four entering the fourth period on scores from Matt Sagehorn, Anthony Artukovich and Shea Buckner. By the final horn, Sagehorn had completed a hat trick and USC held both an 11-6 win and a ticket to the afternoon's title match against UC Santa Barbara. Goalie Joel Dennerley went the distance in the cage for USC, gathering in 11 saves in the win.
All told, during the tournament USC had 16 different players score across the four games. Notching their first career goals as Trojans were several redshirt freshmen: Zayne Belal, Brian Boswell, Forest Monroe, Jon Leopold and Michael Rosenthal.
USC's next competition comes this weekend with a trip down to Long Beach State for a 12 p.m. game on Saturday (Sept. 12) in Long Beach.
2009 TRITON INVITATIONAL - Coggan Family Aquatic Center (La Jolla, Calif.)
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME - Sept. 6
#1 USC 16, #7 UC Santa Barbara 5
USC 5 - 1 - 6 - 4 = 16
UCSB 2 - 1 - 1 - 1 = 5
SCORING:
USC - Peter Kurzeka 2, Brian Boswell 2, J.W. Krumpholz, Justin Rappel, Anthony Artukovich, Matt Sagehorn, Matt Burton, Shea Buckner, Kyle Sterling, Nico Sardo, Jon Leopold, Jordan Thompson, Michael Rosenthal, Forest Monroe.
UCSB - Shoemaker 2, Golic 2, Dellinger.
SAVES: Joel Dennerley (USC) 3, Will Simon (USC) 6.
GROUP PLAY - Sept. 6
GAME THREE
USC 11, LMU 6
USC 3 - 3 - 3 - 2 = 11
LMU 2 - 1 - 2 - 1 = 6
SCORING:
USC - Matt Sagehorn 3, Justin Rappel 2, Peter Kurzeka 2, Anthony Artukovich 2, Shea Buckner, Kyle Sterling.
LMU - Smith 3, Benedetti, Forgi, Schlegel.
SAVES: Joel Dennerley (USC) 11.
GROUP PLAY - Sept. 5
GAME ONE
#1 USC 16, Pomona-Pitzer 2
USC 6 - 2 - 5 - 3 = 16
P-P 0 - 0 - 0 - 2 = 2
SCORING:
USC - Peter Kurzeka 3, Justin Rappel 2, Shea Buckner 2, Devon Borisoff 2, J.W. Krumpholz 2, Forest Monroe 2, Matt Sagehorn, Kyle Sterling, Michael Rosenthal.
P-P - Baliklan 2.
SAVES: Joel Dennerley (USC) 2, Brett Giery (USC) 7.
GROUP PLAY - Sept. 5
GAME TWO
#1 USC 16, #19 Air Force 5
USC 3 - 3 - 5 - 5 = 16
AF 1 - 2 - 2 - 0 = 5
SCORING:
USC - J.W. Krumpholz 3, Matt Burton 2, Brian Boswell 2, Jordan Thompson 2, Justin Rappel, Peter Kurzeka, Anthony Artukovich, Shea Buckner, Kyle Sterling, Nico Sardo, Zayne Belal.
Air Force - Shields 2, Smithson, Geiger, Versage.
SAVES: Joel Dennerley (USC) 8, Will Simon (USC) 3.
Players Mentioned
