SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The No. 12 UC Santa Barbara Men’s Water Polo team returned home Saturday after a month on the road, hosting its first Big West match of the season against No. 16 California Baptist.

Despite strong showings from co-captain Finn Genc and the three centers — Kai Ross, Camren Simoncelli and Hayden Tully — to help the Gauchos climb out of an early hole, things got out of hand late and they found themselves back in the same hole, ultimately falling by a 14-12 score.

“In the last part of the game, we didn’t get any high-quality shots off and I think that’s one thing we need to work on,” UCSB head coach Wolf Wigo said. “Especially once we got down a goal or two at the end, we were still a little gun-shy, we didn’t take shots when we needed to.

“I thought we played a really strong game after the first quarter, the second and third quarters we played amazing, we did a lot of really positive things, our centers all got natural goals out of two meters, but there were a lot of offensive fouls called, and that’s something that we talked about not having. We really want to minimize our turnovers, offensive fouls, and I think that would be the key to us winning the next conference game.”

The first quarter ended up deciding the game, as each team scored 10 goals across the final three frames, but neither side was to know that going in.

The visitors scored first, but Ross answered, then CBU scored again and another big man answered for the Gauchos, this time Simoncelli. The Lancers got separation in the final two and a half minutes of the first quarter, scoring back-to-back goals, but Santa Barbara shrunk and eventually erased that gap in the second quarter.

Genc scored his first goal of the day but was answered by a Lancer, but then the Gauchos found another level, with goals from Tully, Dash D’Ambrosia and Genc turning a 5-3 deficit into a 6-5 lead.

Goalkeeper Wyatt Pieretti and the defense played their part too, keeping CBU from scoring for nearly seven straight minutes. Pieretti finished the day with eight saves, a number of them from point-blank range.

The Lancers did get on the board 29 seconds before halftime to re-tie the scores, but Simoncelli slammed home a go-ahead goal with two seconds left to give the Gauchos a 7-6 advantage at the break.
 
Santa Barbara maintained that one-goal edge after the interval as each team scored three times in the third, with the Gauchos getting their goals from D’Ambrosia, Johnson and Genc.

However, the game turned on its head in the fourth, as CBU went on a 5-1 run over the first seven minutes of the final eight. Johnson did score inside the final minute to cut the deficit to two, but it ended up being too little, too late.

Santa Barbara continues Big West play next weekend, traveling to La Jolla to face No. 10 UC San Diego on Friday, Oct. 16. The Gauchos’ next home match is set for Saturday, Oct. 24, when they will host No. 7 Long Beach State.