LA VERNE —The Occidental College men's water polo team was able to recover from an early 8-0 deficit, but their comeback bid at La Verne came up a little short in a 15-13 loss to the Leopards on Saturday.
Oxy's Kirk Follette (Santa Monica) scored twice, and Jack Stabenfeldt (Larkspur), Joe Reynolds (Souderton, Penn.), Samuel Akiyama (Aptos) Kirk Follette (Santa Monica) and Nathanial Whitmore scored once during a 7-1 run that brought the Tigers within two with a little more than 1 minute to play in the fourth quarter.
But the Tigers couldn't convert their last couple of opportunities and La Verne hung on for the win.
Follette, who finished with three goals, notched his first hat trick of the season.
Oxy got off to a slow start. The Tigers finally got on the board late in the first quarter when sophomore Jack Sinclair (Alhambra) converted a penalty shot.
La Verne answered with another goal to go up 9-1, then Stabenfeldt started the comeback with the first of his team-high four goals on a counter attack.
Trailing 9-5 with just under a minute to play in the first half, the Tigers had a power play opportunity to cut the lead to three. Oxy missed the shot, and La Verne responded with a breakaway goal to go up 10-5 at the break.
In the third quarter, the Leopards started to pull away again. Back-to-back power-play goals extended their lead to 12-5, but Stabenfeldt responded with a power-play to cut the lead to six.
La Verne added two more scores before the end of the third to go up 14-6 heading into the final quarter.
Oxy returns to SCIAC play at Claremont next Wednesday at 4 p.m.
BOX SCORE 1st 2nd 3rd 4th TOTAL
Occidental 2 3 1 7 13
La Verne 9 1 4 1 15
GOALS SCORED:
Occidental-Stabenfeldt-4, Follette-3, Reynolds-2, Akiyama-2, Whitmore-1, Sinclair-1
La Verne-Hargis-7, Navarro-2, Villapando-2, Phillips-1, Huening-1, Vega-1, Jiminez-1
SAVES:
Occidental-Churchman-6
La Verne-Jones-10
