CLAREMONT, CA. – The Pomona-Pitzer Men's Water Polo team put an exclamation point on their Regular Season Championship with a 12-10 comeback win over CMS on Saturday night at Haldeman Pool.
Season Impact: With the win, the Sagehens swept CMS for the regular season and improve to 17-14 overall and 9-1 in SCIAC play while earning the Regular Season SCIAC Championship and clinching the No. 1 seed in the upcoming SCIAC Tournament.
The Sagehens were led by Benjamin Sasaki who netted a hat-trick with four goals in the win. Alexander Peterson also had a multi-goal game with two while Kyle Green, Maxim Koretsky, Sam Sasaki, Zachary Kaplan. Andrew Plaschke and Jack Ryan each contributed one.
CMS came out on fire on offense to start the game with three-straight goals to take an early lead over the Sagehens. Pomona-Pitzer broke the run with a goal by Plashcke by CMS added two more to end the first with a 5-1 lead.
Peterson and Ben Sasaki scored early second-quarter goals and the Sagehens' defense slowed down CMS as they held the Stags to just one goal in the second quarter after giving up five in the first. Sam Sasaki netted his only goal of the game with just over a minute to play left in the first half to bring the Sagehens back to only down two goals at 6-4 at halftime.
Pomona-Pitzer erased the big CMS lead with two goals from Kaplan and Green to open the second half. CMS and Pomona-Pitzer went on to exchange goals after Ben Sasaki scored two-straight game-tying goals to keep it even at 8-8 to open the fourth.
Pomona-Pitzer took its first lead of the night with 4:12 left in the fourth after Koretsky scored a beautiful long shot to put the Sagehens up 9-8. Ryan doubled the Sagehens' lead with a goal to follow to force CMS to try to come back late in the fourth. The Stags cut it back down to one goal with the Sagehens up 10-9, but Pomona-Pitzer shut down the CMS comeback attempt with goals from Ben Sasaki and Peterson to complete the regular season sweep over CMS.
Up Next: The Sagehens earn the top seed in the upcoming SCIAC Tournament where they will await their opponent on Friday, November 18th.
