IRVINE, Calif. — Brock Zamanian made the most of his return to the Bay Area, leading the UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team to a revenge-game win at Santa Clara on Friday and a marquee upset at then-No. 6 San Jose State on Saturday. On Wednesday, The Big West named the Orinda native their Men's Water Polo Player of the Week for his exploits.
 
Over three games on the weekend, Zamanian collected nine goals, four assists and seven drawn exclusions to help the Gauchos go 2-1. The first order of business was paying the Broncos back for an earlier defeat; Zamanian scored three goals, assisted two more and drew five exclusion fouls in Santa Barbara's 14-10 win on Friday. He almost led them to another vengeful win over LMU on Saturday morning, scoring again and providing two assists as the Gauchos came up just one goal short of upsetting the Lions. However, the redshirt senior saved his best for last, putting up a five-goal performance to do what only Stanford had done before, beating San Jose State in their home pool.
 
With a second top 10 victory on their resume, Santa Barbara shot up the rankings this week, reaching No. 12 in this week's Collegiate Water Polo Association and Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches polls, their highest placement of the season on both lists. Zamanian's big scoring haul moved him up the leaderboards as well; he now sits fourth on The Big West goals chart with 39. His career total is approaching the Gauchos' all-time top 10 too; with 142 he is just 14 from matching Zsombor Vincze, Ross Sinclair and Peter Neushul for ninth place in program history.
 
Zamanian will now lead Santa Barbara into their Big West opener on Saturday, Oct. 11, against No. 6 UC San Diego from Dos Pueblos High School. The game will start at 10:30 a.m. as part of the Gauchos' Alumni, Family and Friends Weekend.