By Susannah Edelbaum
Sports Editor

The Pomona-Pitzer men’s water polo team played four games at this weekend’s Inland Empire Invitational, held at UC Redlands on Saturday and University of La Verne on Sunday. The Sagehens won their games against California Maritime and California Institute of Technology, yet lost their matches against UC Santa Clara and UC Santa Cruz.
P-P had their first win of the season at their first game of the tournament, against Cal Maritime. The final score was 11-7, with the scoring well distributed among the players. Scorers included Ben Speicher ’03, Ian Kusao’06, Thomas Krebs ’04, Chris Prochnow (PI ’06), Eric Kort ’04, Eric Krause ’06 and Glenn Anderson (PI ’06).
Jason Gall, the head coach, was happy not just because the team won but also because each time “we’d been improving on different parts of the game,” which was evident in the match against Cal Maritime.
“We weren’t disappointed,” Gall said about the second game of the day, in which the Sagehens were defeated by UC Santa Cruz. “They’re a good team,” Gall added, and also noted that an area in which the team was strong during the game was transitional defense, which involves players being able to switch defensive positions efficiently when one of the other team’s players suddenly draws away with the ball and the person defending doesn’t have adequate time to catch up.
The final score in the Santa Cruz game was 5-12, with goals made by Speicher, Kusao, and Benjamin Blum ’04. “It was good we got as close as we did,” Krause noted.
The Sagehens came back on Sunday to win their first game of the day, 9-4.
“It was good to see how we stood up against a conference team,” Gall said, since CIT, like P-P, is part of the SCIAC. Future games against SCIAC teams will ultimately be the ones that count for the team’s official league record. This game was a little unusual, however, in that CIT’s team is coed, and therefore not official.
The team’s high point of the day was the game against UC Santa Clara. The game, which was “back and forth” according to Gall, was tied 9-9 at the end of regular play. Santa Clara scored during the first of the two 3-minute rounds of regular overtime.
With 30 seconds left, the Sagehens called a time-out and set up a play, but in the second round of overtime Santa Clara regained the ball when the Sagehens were called on a foul. In the last five seconds, though, P-P regained the ball and Speicher scored off an assist made by Krause, tying up the game with one and a half seconds left.
The game then went into double overtime, sudden death, in which the first team to score wins the game. Unfortunately, Santa Clara made a goal, “but it was the best game we’ve played this season,” Krause said.
“Our main goal going in was to limit their number of transitional goals,” said Gall, noting that it was also a very “physical game” and several of the players came out unusually banged up. Anderson, after being elbowed by another player, needed several stitches in his forehead.
Though the team is definitely led by Speicher, its captain, who has a consistently strong, accurate shot and was named an all-American last year, “it’s not like we’re relying on one person” Gall said. “All five freshmen are seriously contributing to the team.”
“We play hard all the time,” Krause said, adding that the team plays its best against stronger teams. “The improvements we’ve made are amazing,” said Gall, “and I’m very happy with our progress and the effort the guys are putting in.”