The No. 18 UC Santa Barbara Women’s Water Polo team’s Friday in Los Angeles was a tale of two games. The Gauchos earned their first win of the season, 17-7 over Biola, before weathering another laborious encounter with No. 2 USC, falling by a 23-4 scoreline.
Mia Sullivan scored her first career goal in that contest with the hosting Trojans, and Eliza Harlow tallied her first collegiate hat-trick in the earlier affair with the Eagles. Siena Jumani also had a great match against Biola, racking up 11 saves and nearly keeping a first-half shutout.
Elsewhere in the box scores, Cami Mras tallied five goals across the two games, Hadley Hall put four past the Eagles, and Lainey Weintre paired two goals with three assists against Biola.
UCSB 17, Biola 7
Mras helped the Gauchos race out of the gate in their first game of the evening, the veteran scoring a hat trick inside four minutes.
Those were the only goals of the opening quarter, but Hall and Isabel Valaika tallied in the second to stretch Santa Barbara’s advantage. Jumani was nearly unbeatable in goal in the first half, highlighted by a save where she clawed a ball that was nearly over the line back out of her cage.
There were fewer than 90 ticks left in the half before the Eagles finally beat the freshman netminder.
As if to pick up her rookie goalie, Hall put home her second score of the day on the ensuing possession. Weintre joined the party with another goal in the final minute of the half, making it a 7-1 scoreline at the interval.
That scoreline only ballooned after the break, with Loretta Hovey putting home consecutive powerplay goals and Marta Maninetti adding on from open play. The Eagles chipped back as the game ticked away but never out-scored the Gauchos in any quarter.
After two Biola goals, Hall, Mras and Harlow fired back to help Santa Barbara win the third, 6-2. Harlow scored twice more in the fourth to complete her hat trick, with Hall and Weintre adding on for the Blue and Gold as each team scored four times in the final frame to bring the scoreline to rest at 17-7.
USC 23, UCSB 4
The evening matchup was ultimately decided by the end of the opening quarter, when the Trojans led, 8-0. The Gauchos struggled to get anything going in the first half but finally clicked in the second half, scoring all four of their goals in the game after the interval.
The score would have been much closer had the Gauchos been able to count their numerous crossbar hits; Santa Barbara dented the iron twice as often as they dented the twine in their evening action.
The four Gauchos did manage to find the net were Sullivan, Souza, Mras and Valaika. Santa Barbara’s three captains all scored one after the other in what was the Gauchos’ strongest section of the evening.
Santa Barbara has a week to regroup before going again at UC San Diego’s Triton Invitational in La Jolla.
The Gauchos open their four-match weekend on Jan. 30 against No. 10 UC Irvine and will go on to play either No. 5 Hawai’i or Concordia Irvine as they progress through the bracket.