IRVINE, Calif. — The No. 16 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team pushed No. 9 UC Irvine through four periods of overtime on Saturday but did eventually fall, 14-13, to the defending Big West Champions. Levi Lentin was tremendous despite the result, making a career-high 17 saves, including stopping both of the Anteaters' five-meter penalty shots in the game. Dom Brown and Danilo Dragovic each scored clutch goals late on and were two of the five Gauchos to tally multiple scores on the day.
 
FROM HEAD COACH WOLF WIGO
"We had our best game of the year," Wigo said. "Our defense was very strong and we had a lot of great natural goals and strong team play when we did get a power play. If we continue to play like this, we will have a very strong finish to the season. Levi was great in the goal and we had a very balanced attack."
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Luke Redoutey scored on Santa Barbara's first possession, and Brock Zamanian scored a minute later to put the Gauchos up by two early, and Lentin made his first penalty save of the afternoon to keep UC Irvine off the board inside the first two minutes. The Anteaters did eventually come back and take a 3-2 lead before Luke Bachler re-tied the game with 12 seconds remaining in the first quarter. Santa Barbara started the second quarter even stronger, out-scoring UC Irvine, 3-1, in the frame. Brown and Zamanian each scored with the teams at even strength, then Dragovic capitalized on the Gauchos' first powerplay of the game to put Santa Barbara up, 6-3.
 
The Gauchos led, 6-4, at halftime, and thanks to an Adam Gyenis penalty and a Luke Bachler powerplay goal, they were up, 8-5, midway through the third quarter. Santa Barbara was only able to keep the Irvine offense down for so long, and a 4-0 run for the Anteaters put the hosts back in the lead early in the fourth. From the seven-minute mark in the fourth quarter on, the teams traded goals, starting with Kai Ross' game-tying score.
 
When the Anteaters scored to re-take the lead, it was Nico Furneaux answering for the Gauchos, then Lentin made his second penalty save of the game to keep the scores level, but the hosts again re-took the lead, 11-10, with a minute and a half to play. Thirty seconds later, Brown came through for the Gauchos, beating the shot clock buzzer with his second goal of the day to tie the game at 11 and force overtime.
 
The Anteaters scored first in the extra period and, despite a tying goal from Redoutey, led halfway through overtime. The score stayed at 13-12 in favor of the hosts until the last moments, when Dragovic scored with four seconds left to play, sending the game into golden-goal overtime. Neither team scored in the first three minutes of the sudden-victory period, but the hosts were able to find the decisive goal after 24 seconds of the second golden-goal frame.
 
UP NEXT
The Gauchos play their final road game of the season next weekend, heading to La Jolla on Nov. 1 for a Friday night game under the lights against UC San Diego. Start time is set for 6 p.m. from Canyonview Aquatic Center, and the game will be broadcast live on ESPN+ with live stats available through ucsbgauchos.com.