IRVINE, Calif. — The No. 11 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team found themselves in a familiar spot against No. 8 UC Davis on Saturday, trailing by three at halftime, but unlike their first dance with the Aggies, the Gauchos were not able to flip the script in The Big West Semifinal and fell, 15-7. Danilo Dragovic led the Gauchos with two goals and an assist, but the Santa Barbara offense was foiled by the play of UC Davis' goalkeeper, who made 11 saves.
 
FROM HEAD COACH WOLF WIGO
"I really thought we were going to have a strong showing at this tournament and it's unfortunate, but I think we impressed a lot of people, impressed ourselves, and we're really looking forward to next year," Wigo said. "We knew it was going to be a hard game. We beat those guys up at their pool and I think they kind of weren't happy about it, so I was looking at this as a 50-50 game, where either team if can win if they play well. I thought we did a good job keeping in the game, I think it was 5-5, we had some really big plays, some good goals, and unfortunately after that our offense kind of dried and we made a few mistakes that you can't make that led to some easier goals for them. I felt like in the fourth quarter, in the beginning, we were still in the game down three goals and really thought we were going to make a run and unfortunately didn't execute on a couple of the opportunities that we had and we had to take some risks at the end so the score really isn't indicative of how the game was, but we didn't play our best game of the year and we needed to play a strong game to win that. Their goalie played way better than he did last time, so that was a big thing for Davis, and they played pretty solid and didn't give us really any free goals, we had to earn everything."
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
It was a defensive battle early, as neither team scored for nearly three minutes before UC Davis broke the deadlock and went ahead, 2-0. Camren Simoncelli answered back for Santa Barbara, only for the Aggies to restore their two-goal lead shortly afterwards. Dragovic finally converted a 6-on-5 powerplay for the Gauchos with just over a minute left in the first to get back within a goal, but it was a two-goal deficit again at the end of the quarter.
 
After a defensive start to the first, the second quarter started as shootout, with three goals in the first four possessions. Dragovic provided the first, then Charlie Johnson scored to tie the game at four before the Aggies re-took the lead. As the defenses returned to form, it was four minutes before another goal, with Sam McKenzie breaking through to tie the game again. However, a bad final two minutes cost the Gauchos, with Davis scoring three unanswered goals before the buzzer to lead, 8-5, at halftime.
 
Of course, Santa Barbara faced a three-goal halftime deficit when they upset the Aggies in the regular season, and early in the third quarter it looked like a repeat performance was on the cards, as Luke Redoutey scored to cut into the lead and the Gaucho defense locked down the Davis attack. However, Aggie goalie Baxter Chelsom made six of his 11 saves in the third quarter alone to prevent Santa Barbara from capitalizing on the shutout they were pitching. Worse still, Davis scored with 20 seconds left in the quarter to restore their three-goal advantage.
 
After another Aggie goal with six minutes left in the game, the Gauchos had to throw the kitchen sink into the attack, leaving them vulnerable at the back and allowing five more goals before the final buzzer, with only Ryan McManigal able to tally for Santa Barbara.
 
The Gauchos end the season with a 17-14 record, highlighted by three wins over teams ranked sixth in the national rankings. They concluded Big West play with a 3-2 record to earn the conference's no. 2 seed, matching their best finish since men's water polo returned to the conference.