The weekend started off with a bang as the UC San Diego Men’s Club Water Polo Team took on their cross-town rivals San Diego State University. While ultimately falling to the Aztecs 9-6, the Tritons kept the game close, trading goals up until the last few minutes. Nicholas “Landslide” Ratekin was the lead scorer while Gio “Big Spoon” Goggia and co-captain Frederick “Little Spoon” Ferrer held down the defensive end. Unfortunately, the Tritons could not put some key goals away and went home with a loss.
The second game of the day had the Tritons taking on the University of Arizona Wildcats. Both teams had a tough time on offense, and this game was a hard fought defensive game. New addition Austin “Chuck” Norris and sophomore Billy “Goat” Cranshaw lead the team in scoring to bring the Tritons to a 6-5 win against the Wildcats. This brought the Tritons to a 2-0 record against the Wildcats, the team that ultimately knocked them out of the Regional tournament last season.
The next day brought the Tritons their first matchup against the UC Irvine Anteaters for the season. Co-captain Travis “Day and” Knight and Jacob “Cannon” Stupin helped the team cruise to an easy 10-5 win. Jacob found this game very personal as his younger brother James was on the opposing team. This helped Jacob to be the leading scorer out of both this team. This will ultimately be the only matchup between the Tritons and their fellow UC.
The last game of the tournament brought the Tritons against the University of San Diego Torreros. The Torreros had no subs so the Tritons took full advantage of this opportunity and used their deep bench to defeat the Torreros 10-3. Freshmen Joshua “The Big” Wang and Dan “Vampire” Metzler played very well showing a lot of promise for the future of this program. Kyler “Backpack” Gleason also pulled a few tricks out of his bag and had a couple of goals. Ultimately leaving the weekend with 3-1 record, the Tritons will be hard at work for the next three weeks as they have their regional tournament on Halloween Weekend.
