By: Andrew Shortall, Director of Athletics Communications
Box Score DAVIS – California Baptist University men's water polo stamped its ticket into the Western Water Polo Association Championship Semifinals with a convincing 15-10 win over Santa Clara in Friday's opening quarterfinals.
Joseph Griffin led the way for the third-seeded and 16
th-ranked Lancers with a career-high six goals on Friday at UC Davis. CBU also got a hat trick from
Hunter Barnett, two goals from
PJ McDonough and showed off its passing with 12 assists. The Lancers improve to 19-13 on the year, while Santa Clara drops to 12-16.
Thomas de Wit had a team-high three assists – all in the first half – while Barnett,
Cameron Cullen and
Angel Sanchez all had two of their own.
Tristan Felberg had five saves and three steals in goal to help hold the sixth-seeded Broncos to 10 goals for the second time this year.
The Lancers will face second-seeded UC San Diego, the 10
th-ranked team in the NCAA in the WWPA Championship semifinals Saturday at 9:30 a.m. back at the Schaal Aquatics Center.
After CBU and Santa Clara battled through an 11-10 Lancer win in their regular-season meeting in Riverside this season, things were neck-and-neck up until the fourth quarter again on Friday.
There six ties and three lead changes throughout, and no team led by more than two goals until the final three minutes. CBU looked to pull away, up 7-5 after Griffin's second goal of the first half with 1:56 left in the second quarter.
Santa Clara erased its deficit to tie things at 7-7 going into halftime. Ties were forced at 8-8 and 9-9 in the third quarter, but the Lancers closed out the final 11 minutes on a 7-1 run. Griffin scored three of his six goals in the third quarter and within that dominant stretch from CBU, which included two goals from McDonough and one each from Cullen and Barnett.
WWPA HISTORY
This will be CBU's seventh time in the WWPA Championship semifinals in the last eight years. The Lancers are looking to defend their 2020 WWPA Championship, which led to them becoming the first team in school history to compete in the NCAA Championships.
This year's tournament is a tougher challenge, as last season was shortened and only included three WWPA teams.
CBU has put together a number of impressive semifinal performances over the years, as the Lancers have advanced to the WWPA Tournament semifinals in five of the last six years that included a full field. California Baptist was only a goal or two away from the championship game three times, with an 11-9 loss to UC San Diego in 2017 and one-goal losses to UC Davis in 2016 (5-4) and 2015 (14-13).
