USC
Pacific
No. 2 Trojans Win Two At Home
October 30, 2010 | Men's Water Polo
Oct. 30, 2010
LOS ANGELES, CALIF. - The No. 2 USC men's water polo team snagged back-to-back wins today in double-header action at McDonald's Swim Stadium. The Trojans first had to hold off a tough No. 7 Pacific squad, with USC pulling out a 9-8 MPSF win in that one. Next, USC went up against Concordia and tallied a 15-7 win over the visiting Eagles. USC is now 18-2 overall and improves to 3-2 in MPSF play.
Against the Tigers, the Trojan never trailed, but also never had any comfortable breathing room in the MPSF match. While USC was able to build up a three-goal advantage in the third period, Pacific rallied back to lock things up 8-8 in the later stages of the fourth period. Tied up with two minutes to go in regulation, USC had to get things going. Jeremy Davie stepped up again and earned USC's third 6-on-5 opportunity of the period. The Trojans had misfired on the previous two chances, but this third setup was effective for USC. Mace Rapsey delivered a pass to Peter Kurzeka, and Kurzeka blasted in a crosscage strike to take USC ahead 9-8 with 1:26 on the clock. Tobias Preuss picked up a steal against Paciific's next possession, and the Trojans made full use of the clock on their next trip down. The Tigers would call a time out to set up their final possession with 28 seconds to go, and earned a 6-on-5 opportunity with 10 seconds to go. Pacific got off the shot for a chance to equalize, but USC goalie Joel Dennerley slammed down the attempt to secure the win for the Trojans.
USC had eight different players score in the game, with freshman Connor Virjee standing alone with a two-goal game. Pacific - which had closed to within one goal in the second frame as well before the Trojans pieced together a pair of goals to get ahead - was paced by a hat trick by Tom Koning.
With that tight win in hand, the Trojans turned to take on their second opponent of the day, engaging in their first-ever official battle with Concordia. Dennerley again manned the cage to start, adding five saves to his nine-goal outing against the Tigers. Jimmy Friedrich stepped in for the fourth period against the Eagles, and made three impressive saves, including one that shut down a Concordia 6-on-5. Once again, the Trojan scoring was well-distributed. This time, 10 different Trojans got on the board, with Mace Rapsey, Peter Kurzeka, Nikola Vavic, Max Hurst-Mendoza and Connor Virjee each tallying a pair. Rapsey had his two on the board early, as the Trojans jumped ahead 5-0 with Rapsey's two goals and one each from Zayne Belal, Michael Rosenthal and Kurzeka. Concordia pulled to within two during the second with a three-goal scoring spurt, but USC padded the lead back to four and stayed relatively solid down the stretch to close out a 15-7 nonconference victory over the Eagles.
#2 USC 9, #7 Pacific 8
USC 4 - 2 - 2 - 1 = 9
PAC 2 - 2 - 2 - 2 = 8
SCORING:
USC - Connor Virjee 2, Jeremy Davie, Michael Rosenthal, Tobias Preuss, Matt Burton, Forest Monroe, Nikola Vavic, Peter Kurzeka.
PAC - Tom Koning 3, Balazs Erdelyi 2, Goran Tomasevic 2, Joey Gullikson.
SAVES: Joel Dennerley (USC) 9, Alex Malkis (PAC) 6.
#2 USC 15, Concordia 7
USC 5 - 3 - 3 - 4 = 15
CON 1 - 4 - 0 - 2 = 7
SCORING:
USC -- Mace Rapsey 2, Peter Kurzeka 2, Nikola Vavic 2, Max Hurst-Mendoza 2, Connor Virjee 2, Zayne Belal, Michael Rosenthal, Jeremy Davie, Matt Burton, Rex Butler.
CON - Duje Grubisic 2, Jacob Pril, Caleb Hamilton, Alex Donovan, Jarrod Przebieda, Daniel Baba.
SAVES: Joel Dennerley (USC) 5 [3 periods], Jimmy Friedrich (USC) 3 [1 period], Martin Babovic (CON) 8 [3 periods], Ryan Freerks (CON) 0 [1 period].
Players Mentioned
