LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Against one of the best teams in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, the Occidental College men's water polo team had plenty of opportunities. They just didn't convert them.

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Joe Reynolds (Souderton, PA) had 10 shots and Tai McDermott (Palos Verdes, CA) and Brendan Whitmore (Lafayette, CA) each had seven, but combined they scored just four goals and the Tigers (7-19, 2-4) lost to Cal Lutheran (14-8, 5-1) 10-6 on Wednesday at Taylor Pool.

Reynolds and Whitmore each scored two goals and assisted on a pair, but the majority of Oxy's chances came up empty in the team's last home match of the season.

"Those guys, their job is to shoot. And we're going to live and die with them," Zubrin said. "Today unfortunately we died, but we'll be back tomorrow. We're not going pull the ball out of their hands. We want out shooters to take shots. …Some days it's there and some days it's not."

Even when the Tigers had advantages, the scoring didn't get much easier.

"We failed to convert plenty of opportunities. We made two out of 12 six-on-five's," Occidental coach Larry Zubrin said. "You're not going to win many games with a 17 percent 6-on-5 ratio."

Cal Lu drew first blood on a counter goal midway through the first period, and they'd added another score on their very next possession to take a 2-0 lead.  Inspite of four drawn exclusions by the Tigers the Kingsman defense held Oxy scoreless in the first. 

CLU upped the lead to 3-0 scoring on the first possession of the second quarter, but Whitemore responded with a sweep shot from 2M to get the Tigers on the board.    Oxy then cut the lead to 3-2 on a Jack Stabenfeldt (Larkspure, CA) goal just :30 later.   The Kingsmen went up 5-2 a couple minutes later, and added a pool length shot at the buzzer to take a 6-2 lead at the half.

Trailing 7-2 with just over 5:00 to play in the third quarter, Oxy mounted a strong comeback.  The Tigers would score three unanswered goals including back to back goals in the final :30 of the period to cut the Kingsman lead to 7-5 heading into the final quarter.

In the fourth CLU put the clamps on the Tigers offense, holding Oxy to just one goal, while adding three more of their own, all on man advantage opportunities.  The Tigers were called for six exclusions in the final quarter, after commiting just six through the first three periods. 

McDermott also had four steals and Jack Stabenfeldt (Larkspur, CA) had three.

The Tigers are back in the pool at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Saturday at 11 a.m.