CLAREMONT —The Occidental College men's water polo team came out with a strong defensive effort against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Wednesday, but the Stags' offense eventually got to the Tigers and Oxy struggled to score in an 18-3 loss on Wednesday.
CMS scored the first goal early in the opening quarter, but Oxy's Jack Stabenfeldt (Larkspur) converted a power play to tie the game halfway through the first.
The Stags scored a breakaway in the final 2 minutes of the quarter to take a 2-1 lead after one.
The second quarter was a different story. The Stags extended their lead with three unanswered goals in the first 2 minutes. Oxy managed to cut the lead back down to three when Samuel Akiyama (Aptos) scored the first of his two goals of the game, after a time out.
The teams went back into defensive mode and the score remained close until CMS went on another run, scoring five unanswered goals in the final 4 minutes of the half, to take a 10-2 lead at the break.
The Tiger defense improved in the second half, but the offense continued to struggle. The Tigers managed to score on just one of nine attempts on goal in the last two quarters.
The Tigers (5-20, 0-7) finish their regular season with a home game this Saturday against Caltech at 11 a.m.
BOX SCORE 1st 2nd 3rd 4th TOTAL
Occidental 1 1 0 1 3
CMS 2 8 4 4 18
Goals Scored:
Occidental-Akiyama-2, Stabenfeldt-1
CMS-Cullen-4, Baier-3, Hilborn-3, Lefor-2, McGregor-2, Holland-2, Thomasson-1, Linz-1
SAVES:
Occidental-Churchman-8
CMS-Kelley-n/a
