California Baptist University
La Verne
Feeding Frenzy
3/14/2014 8:53:00 PM | Women's Water Polo
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Eager to cleanse its palate from a loss the day before, California Baptist University started rolling from its very first sprint of the Lancer Invitational No. 2 Friday at the Lancer Aquatics Center.
CBU dominated in seemingly every fashion in its first match of its second invite against the University of La Verne en route to a 19-6 victory. The Lancers received goals from 10 different players and was led by Laura Kocsis' five goals. Kaitlyn Persky also recorded a hat trick to go along with three assists for CBU, which moves to 11-9 on the year. La Verne slips to 1-10.
“That's perfect, we are at our best when we have seven, eight, nine people contributing because when teams try to take one thing away from us, we can come back with someone else,” head coach Jonathan Miller said of the well-rounded scoring. “It makes our jobs easier when we have girls that can step up with a goal when they're needed.”
Mallory Montano, Hannah Evans and Molly Gritchen each had multi-goal games for the Lancers, who also received a goal and three assists from Christina Young. Paizlee Dryer also had three assists and Morgan Barrows added two for CBU.
A dominant defense set up the majority of the Lancer offense, as it forced turnovers that fed into its fast break. The Lancers racked up 10 steals and was stolen from just twice. Meghan Rowland, who also had an assist and steal, posted six saves (two on exclusions) in the first half in the cage for CBU, which had Leticia Perez close out the game with five blocks.
“We knew we'd have some looks,” Miller said, "we were just focused on playing hard in-the-lane defense, getting back to the basics and playing with intensity today.”
CBU started rolling from the very first sprint, which was won by Kocsis and led to her first goal on an exclusion drawn by Jessica Castellano. The Lancers then got consecutive tallies from Evans at two-meter in a 51-second span and another from Montano for a 4-0 lead with 4:26 to play in the first quarter.
The Leopards got on the board with a six-on-five goal at the 2:58 mark, but the Lancers kept their four-goal lead in tact with a Gritchen goal 56 seconds before the end of the quarter.
That lead was doubled by halftime after CBU won the second quarter with a 6-2 run. Kocsis had the first three goals of the period to give the Lancers a 7-1 lead less than 2:30 into the period.
Following a La Verne score, CBU received consecutive goals from Persky. The first came on a beautiful back-handed, skip-shot goal that rolled across the face of the cage and into the left corner. The next came off an assist from Gritchen. The counter was started on an outlet pass from Rowland to Gritchen, who drew the brunt of the defensive attention, on the right side. Gritchen looked up and saw Persky all alone on the far post and fed her for an easy one-time goal.
La Verne broke the Lancers' streak with a goal at the 1:16 mark, but saw CBU put together another 2-0 run to end the half, with Young and Gritchen providing those goals.
The Lancers also won the third quarter on a 6-2 mark, with Kocsis scoring twice, Persky, Raine Paul, Valerie Spezzaferri and Samantha Banks scoring in the quarter. Goals from Alyssa Rodriguez, Montano and Castellano closed out the scoring for the Lancers in the fourth quarter.
CBU will likely face a bigger test when it hosts Iona College at 6:20 p.m. tonight. The Gaels dropped an 11-8 game to Loyola Marymount--who defeated the Lancers 15-8 Thursday--in their first game Friday.
"We had to get back to the things we do well because we have Iona tonight and they're going to be tough," Miller said. "They're a really aggressive offensive team, they drive a lot, they move a lot and they're very scrappy so if we're not talking on defense they're going to get open looks. We just have to play as an unit."
