PALO ALTO, Calif. — The No. 1 USC Men’s Water Polo team moves past No. 4 Fordham in the NCAA Semifinals 16-7. The Trojans will play for the NCAA Championship for the 19th time in the past 21 seasons.
In a rematch of last year’s NCAA semifinal in which USC won 18-16 in OT, USC scored first when Robert Lopez Duart scored. Fordham tied the game 1-1 with 4:14 left in the first quarter. The Rams couldn’t score for over nine minutes as the Trojans’ lead grew to 6-1 with 3:13 remaining in the first half. USC led 8-3 at the break.
In the second half, the USC defense swarmed Fordham nearly every time it had scoring opportunities. The Rams were shut out for the first 7:55 of the third quarter as USC scored the first five goals of the half, putting the game out of reach and cruising to the 16-7 victory.
Lopez Duart, the Trojans leading scorer on the season, led with a hat trick. Luke Nelson, Strahinja Krstic and Mihailo Vukazic added two goals each and Efe Naipoglu had three assists. The Trojans had 11 different goal scorers across their 16 goals.
Charlie Mills had nine saves. The Trojan defense had 10 steals, led by three from Evan Ausmus and added four field blocks. Fordham came into the game averaging 19 goals a game and hadn’t been held under nine before today.
Bruins punch ticket to final
STANFORD, Calif. — No. 2 UCLA (26-2) rallied for its fourth win over No. 3 Stanford (18-8) this season, defeating the Cardinal, 9-7, on Saturday evening at Avery Aquatic Center. The win propels the Bruins into the NCAA Championship game to face rival No. 1 USC.
The Bruins had six different players score, paced by a team-high two goals for redshirt junior Frederico Jucá Carsalade and sophomore Ryder Dodd. Jucá Carsalade led all scorers with five points (two goals and a game-high three assists). Redshirt junior Ben Larsen was the only other Bruin to score multiple goals.
Redshirt sophomore Nate Tauscher tallied a career-best 16 saves to go with two steals. Tauscher and the Bruins’ defense held the Cardinal to a season-low seven goals (just the second time this season Stanford had been held to single-digit scoring).
The Bruins clung to a 4-3 lead at the break. Stanford outscored the Bruins, 4-2, in the third period to take a 7-6 lead into the final period. UCLA scored the first goal of the third to lead 5-3. But the Cardinal scored three straight goals to claim their first lead of the game at 6-5 with 4:52 left in the third. Each team scored a goal in the final 4:52 of the third quarter.
The Bruins’ defense shut out Stanford in the fourth. Tauscher picked up three stops in the final stanza and the team forced six turnovers with six different Bruins registering a steal. Ryder Dodd scored the equalizer at the 4:59 mark to tie the game at 7-7. Then Larsen provided the game-winning goal on a Bruin power play with 1:50 to go. The Bruins earned a defensive stop to seal the deal on a 7-on-6 play for the Cardinal.
Up Next: The Bruins will face top-seeded USC (24-3) on Sunday, Dec. 7 at 3:00 p.m. in the NCAA title match.
