DAVIS, Calif. — The No. 14 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team nearly mounted another second-half comeback against No. 8 Long Beach State on Friday, but it was not to be this time around and the Gauchos fell, 12-9, in the first round of The Big West Championship. Luke Bachler scored a hat-trick and added an assist to lead Santa Barbara's attack, while Adam Gyenis added two more goals in his final game in Blue and Gold to end his career as the eighth-highest scorer in Gaucho Water Polo history (160). Levi Lentin made 12 saves in goal for Santa Barbara.
 
FROM HEAD COACH WOLF WIGO
"It was a tough way to end the season," Wigo said. "I thought we played a strong match and did a lot of the things we had hoped to accomplish, but we came up just short against a really strong Long Beach team."

HOW IT HAPPENED
Neither team had much scoring to offer in the first quarter of play, with Gyenis the only Gaucho to find the back of the cage in the opening frame and just two Beach players managing the feat themselves for a 2-1 scoreline after eight minutes. Danilo Dragovic scored the first goal of the second quarter to tie the game up at 2-2, but Long Beach State was the first team to put together a run of consecutive goals and went up, 5-2.
 
Brock Zamanian pulled a goal back for the Gauchos, and Gyenis scored again to cut the lead to just 5-4, but the Beach scored the last goal before halftime to lead 6-4 at the break. They scored the first goal of the second half too, but Bachler answered to keep it a two-score game. However, the Beach did find two more goals to go up, 9-5, before the end of the third.
 
Luke Redoutey kick-started the Gauchos' late rally, scoring with just 16 seconds left in the third quarter to make the score 9-6, and Dom Brown found the back of the cage less than 30 seconds into the fourth to make it 9-7. A few minutes later, Bachler scored his second goal of the day to pull Santa Barbara within one, but the Beach found their offensive rhythm again in the final four minutes of the game to stay ahead. Bachler completed his hat-trick with under two minutes to play, but that goal only made the score 11-9, still in Long Beach's favor. They would score one more goal before the end of the game.