By: Andrew Shortall, Director of Athletics Communications
Box Score DAVIS – An incredible finish led California Baptist University men's water polo to a one-goal win over UC San Diego, 14-13, in the Western Water Polo Association Championship semifinals and a trip to the conference championship game for the second year in a row.
The third-seeded and 16
th-ranked Lancers victory over the second-seeded and 10
th-ranked Tritons was decided in the final second. UCSD scored to tie the game at 13-13 with 12 seconds left, but CBU drew an exclusion with eight seconds to play and
Caleb Teraoka buried the game-winning powerplay goal with one second left.
UC San Diego got one last shot at a tie but
Tristan Felberg turned it away for his 10
th save of the game to hand California Baptist the victory. It is the 40
th ranked win in program history and fourth over a top-10 team in a full season for the Lancers, who have four victories over ranked teams this season alone.
CBU will face top-seeded tournament host and 11th-ranked UC Davis at the Aggies' Schaal Aquatics Center on Sunday at noon. The winner will earn the WWPA's automatic bid for the NCAA Championships.
The Lancers improve to 20-13 this season as now winners of seven-straight games, while UCSD drops to 14-9 and sees its four-game winning streak come to an end. California Baptist has now won at least 20 games four times in the last five full seasons, with its single-season NCAA-era record for wins set at 22.
Teraoka finished with a hat trick and an assist in the game, while CBU also had hat tricks from
Joseph Griffin and
PJ McDonough, who had a team-high four goals.
Zach Lowery had four points, as well, with three assists, a goal, two drawn ejections and a steal.
Thomas de Wit and
Cameron Cullen each had three assists in the game, as well.
The Lancers jumped out to a big lead on Saturday, with a 3-0 advantage over the Tritons at the end of the first quarter thanks to goals from McDonough, Griffin and Lowery. CBU's cushion peaked at four goals, 6-2, after true freshman
Gavin McKenzie scored two minutes into the second quarter.
UC San Diego started its comeback in the third quarter and cut the deficit all the way down to one, 8-7, with 14 minutes left in regulation. CBU shot its lead back up to three after consecutive goals from centers Griffin and
Matt Olsen for a 10-7 edge with 4:56 left in the third.
California Baptist's lead grew as high as four goals again, 12-8, with 5:34 remaining in the game on the heels of back-to-back goals from
PJ McDonough in the fourth. The Tritons kept pushing and tied the game with a 3-0 run in the final 2:44.
WWPA HISTORY
This will be CBU's second-straight trip to the WWPA Championship game, although this will be its first in a full season. 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.
UC San Diego has been a force in the conference for years. The Tritons have won 14 WWPA Championships since 1990 and advanced to 25 conference championship games in that span. This will be the first time since 2010 that UCSD has not qualified for the WWPA Championship game in a season where it's fielded a team (as it did not compete in 2020).
