Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 | Box Score 4 SAN DIEGO, CA. – The Pomona-Pitzer Men's Water Polo team started out 0-4 in their first tournament of 2024 at the UCSD Invite with losses to Pepperdine, Cal State Fullerton, UCLA and UC San Diego this past weekend.
 
Pomona-Pitzer 9, Pepperdine 21
 
The Sagehens opened the season against No. 13 Pepperdine to start the UCSD Invite. Chase Barman, Indigo Lee and Zach Whitfield all had two goals in the loss while Andrew Plashke, Patrick Hughes, and Kai Baker netted one as well.
 
Pepperdine controlled the game from early on as they opened the game with five of the first six goals to take a commanding lead over Pomona-Pitzer. Whitfield netted both of his goals for the Sagehens in the first quarter while Barman also scored one in a high scoring first quarter, but the Waves held a 7-3 lead.
 
Pomona-Pitzer kept with Pepperdine in the second as they had their highest scoring quarter of the game with four goals. Lee, Plaschke, and Barman scored goals for the Sagehens as they tried to chip away at the lead but Pepperdine ended the first half with two goals to extend their lead to 13-7 at the break.
 
Pepperdine took over the game in the second half but both teams struggled to score in the third.  The Sagehens were left goalless while the Wavers scored just two goals to take a 15-7 lead into the fourth. 
 
Pepperdine went on to add six more goals in the fourth while Hughes and Baker added goals for the Sagehens in the loss.
 
Pomona-Pitzer 12, Cal State Fullerton 13
 
The Sagehens then ended day one with a loss to Cal State Fullerton.
 
Whitfield, Conrad Hugar, Connor Sullivan, and Max Distaso had two goals while Micah Webber, Lee, and Barman had one.
 
The Sagehens took the lead to start the game with goals from Distaso and Sullivan before the Titans responded with two of their own to tie the game at 2-2. The Sagehens ended with two of the least three goals from Hugar and Barman to take a 4-3 lead after the first quarter of play.
 
Cal State Fullerton came back with a big second quarter in which they scored a game-high five goals. The Sagehens continued to score with another four goals coming from Hugar, Lee, Whitfield, and Webber with the teams headed into halftime tied at 8-8.
 
The Sagehens went ahead in the third with goal from Distaso and Sullivan to take a 10-9 lead into the fourth, but Cal State Fullerton ended the game with four of the final five goals of the game to steal a win over the Sagehens.
 
Pomona-Pitzer 4, UCLA 24
 
Pomona-Pitzer started day two with a loss to Division I powerhouse UCLA. Whitfield had two goals for the Sagehens while Lee and Barman had one each.
 
The Bruins came out with the first three goals of the game before Whitfield netted his first with the Bruins up 5-1.  Lee got the Sagehens closer at 5-2, but UCLA ended the first half up 10-2.
 
Barman netted the next goal for the Sagehens to make it 14-3 and Whitfield score his second to bring the score to 15-4 in the third.  The Bruins ended the game with the final nine goals as the Sagehens fell short in their third game of the Triton Invite.
 
Pomona-Pitzer 8, UCSD 17
 
The Sagehens ended the tournament against the host with a 17-8 loss to UC San Diego.
 
Whitfield led the scoring with three goals while Barman netted two for the Sagehens. Lee, Nico Perna and Julian Montoya had one goal each as well in the loss.
 
The Tritons started strong with five goals in the first two quarters and started the first with three-straight goals to take a 3-0 lead before Barman scored for the Sagehens. UCSD extended their lead to 5-1 before back-to-back goals from Whitfield and Barman brought the Sagehens to a 5-3 deficit.
 
The Sagehens started the second with two of the first three goals to make it a 6-5 game, but UCSD sparked a 4-0 run to end the first half up 10-5.
 
Whitfield and Lee netted goals again in the third while Montoya scored in the fourth for Pomona-Pitzer, but the Tritons offense kept them out of reach as the Sagehens fell to 0-4 to start the year.
 
Up Next: The Sagehens will next compete in the IE  Tournament on Saturday September 14^th.