LA JOLLA, Calif. — The No. 15 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team looked a whole lot more like the squad they expect themselves to be on Saturday, recovering from Friday's nightmare start to the season with a big win over La Verne and a competitive performance against USC, albeit in a 16-10 loss. Their 23-7 drubbing of the Leopards was the perfect palate-cleanser to start the day, but perhaps even more impressive was putting 10 goals past the No. 2 Trojans, the most goals USC has allowed on the young season, after being held to just seven across two games on Friday. Danilo Dragovic led the scoring party against La Verne, tallying four in a game where every outfield Gaucho who got in the pool got on the scoresheet. In the afternoon, it was veterans Brock Zamanian and Sam McKenzie leading the charge, with three goals each.
 
No. 15 UC SANTA BARBARA 23, LA VERNE 7
Taking on a team that they have put 20 or more goals past in now six straight meetings was pretty much exactly what the Gauchos needed to get their offense back on track, and Santa Barbara took advantage. After needing their entire first game to get to four goals on Friday, the Gauchos hit that mark in under five minutes on Saturday morning. Dragovic, Oliver Sherwood, Charlie Johnson and Sean O'Brien put Santa Barbara up big early, and both O'Brien and Dragovic scored again to put the Gauchos up, 6-3, at the end of the first quarter.
 
Kai Ross got the second quarter started, then Dragovic completed his hat-trick, Tyler Roller scored and Griffin Pieretti converted a penalty shot before the Leopards could get on the board again. The score was 10-4, Santa Barbara, at halftime.
 
Luke Redoutey scored first after the break, Dragovic scored a penalty for his fourth goal of the match, and Sherwood scored again to further extend the lead in the third. After La Verne got a pair of goals back, McKenzie scored the next two, putting the Blue and Gold up by a score of 15-6 heading into the final quarter.
 
In that final quarter, Santa Barbara scored eight straight goals to wrap up the result. Camren Simoncelli got in on the fun, then McKenzie finished his first hat-trick of the day. Roller scored again, then Simoncelli again, and Landon Lassahn added his name to the list of goals. Kyle Rosenblatt followed his lead, then Lassahn found the back of the net again before Billy Rankin scored to make it 13 out of 13 outfield Gauchos on the scoresheet in the game.
 
No. 15 UC SANTA BARBARA 10, No. 2 USC 16
The Gauchos hung close with last year's National Runners-Up in the afternoon action, trailing by just one goal right before halftime and again bringing the margin down to just one with a few minutes left in the third quarter. To get within arm's reach was something of an impressive feat considering the Gauchos trailed, 5-1, after the first eight minutes, with McKenzie their only scorer in the game's opening frame.
 
The deficit was 6-1 less than a minute into the second quarter, but Santa Barbara rallied, with a pair of goals from Zamanian, another from McKenzie and a tally from Rankin making the score 6-5 with a minute until the break. The Trojans scored twice in the final minute of the half, but Johnson scored the first goal after halftime to get one back for the Gauchos.
 
McKenzie and Zamanian both finished their hat-tricks in the third quarter too, getting back to within one with 2:37 left in the quarter, down 9-8. That would be as close as Santa Barbara got though, with USC scoring seven to just two from the Gauchos over the remainder of the game. Simoncelli and Roller's goals made the score 13-10 with four minutes left in the fourth, but ended up just being consolation.
 
UP NEXT
Santa Barbara will look to keep up their momentum and finish the weekend strong on Sunday, taking on No. 20 Navy at 8 a.m. and Pomona-Pitzer at 1:20 p.m. at the Canyonview Aquatic Center in La Jolla.