ASU water polo played well defensively in the UC Irvine Invitational tournament leading them to a victory against Cal State Northridge, but a lack of scoring sealed a loss in its first matchup against UC Irvine.
The Sun Devils headed in to the tournament as the No. 7 ranked team in the country and coming off of a fourth place finish in the UCSD tournament two weeks ago.
In their first matchup against UCI, the Sun Devils were able to stave off any big offensive output from the Anteatears, but they themselves only scored one goal in the first.
The score was 2-1 at halftime.
Headed into the second half, the Sun Devils still struggled with scoring. They scored one goal on a penalty shot coming from senior defender Katie Sverchek.
After three quarters of play, the Sun Devils were down 2-3.
In the fourth quarter, the Anteaters scored two goals to take a 5-3 lead. With 1:29 left in the game senior center Abbey Kerth scored drawing the Sun Devils to only one goal down from UCI. However, the Sun Devils could not complete the comeback.
Now relegated to the consolation bracket, the Sun Devils faced off against the Cal State Nothridge Matadors.
Against CSUN, the low-scoring story for the Sun Devils came out a bit different.
ASU kicked off the first quarter with a strong lead by putting away three goals and only conceded one.
In the second quarter, they scored another goal and kept the Matadors from decreasing the Sun Devil lead. ASU led 4-1.
In the third quarter, CSUN was able to push across three goals while ASU scored two. The match became a little less lopsided with a score of 6-4 ending into the fourth quarter.
ASU scored two goals in the fourth quarter and halted the Matador offense to secure their first victory of the tournament with a final score of 8-4.
The Sun Devils face off against UC San Diego tomorrow at 9 AM at the Anteater Aquatics Complex in Irvine, CA.
Reach the reporter at Graham.Paul@asu.edu or follow @GrahamASUpress on Twitter.
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