Thousand Oaks, Calif. - The Pomona-Pitzer Women's Water Polo team suffered its first conference loss in two years as it fell to Cal Lutheran 10-9 on Wednesday.

With the loss, Pomona-Pitzer falls to 9-14 on the year and 1-1 in the SCIAC, snapping its conference winning streak at 12, after a perfect 10-0 record last year (which included four overtime games, one of which came against Cal Lutheran at home).

The match was tight the whole way, with neither team leading by more than two goals. Pomona-Pitzer started out with a 2-0 lead on two early goals from freshman Katy Schafer (Los Altos, Calif.), but Cal Lutheran answered with the next three goals to take their first lead at 3-2 with 4:30 left in the first half.

Schafer scored her third goal of the first half to make the score 4-4 at intermission, and sophomore Mahalia Prater-Fahey (San Diego, Calif.) scored the first goal of the second half to give the Sagehens a 5-4 lead.

Cal Lutheran, though, answered with a 4-1 run to take an 8-6 lead with 4:56 left in the third, and maintained its lead the rest of the way. Sophomore Alyssa Woodward (Riverside, Calif.) cut the lead to 8-7, sophomore Sarah Westcott (Menlo Park, Calif.) scored to trim the lead to 9-8, and Woodward scored again with 40 seconds left to make the score 10-9, but the Sagehens couldn't find the equalizer against the hot goaltending of Gina Merry (16 saves).

Westcott (pictured) and Schafer finished with three goals apiece for Pomona-Pitzer, while Woodward had two. Morgan McCardell had three for Cal Lutheran, including one with 5:47 to play to make the score 10-8, which proved to be the difference.

Pomona-Pitzer is back in action on Saturday with a road match against Occidental.