LA JOLLA, Calif. — The No. 19 UC Santa Barbara Women's Water Polo team continued its hunt for consistent offense at UC San Diego's Triton Invitational Friday afternoon, but only Loretta Hovey, Zoe Gabriel and Isabel Valaika could find the back of the net in the Gauchos' 17-3 loss to No. 11 UC Irvine to open the tournament.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
There were things to like about Santa Barbara's opening quarter, despite ending it in a three-goal deficit. The Gauchos stopped an Anteater five-meter penalty on the game's opening possession, and they made the most of their first extra-attacker opportunity. One of the team's captains, Valaika led from the front with a six-on-five goal at the 4:39 mark, making the score 2-1 at the time. When the horn sounded at the end of the frame, the score was 4-1, not out of reach by any means.
 
However, it was effectively out of reach by halftime. The Anteaters put together a 5-0 scoring run on top of the 2-0 run they ended the first quarter on, with Gabriel finally putting a stop to it with her goal 55 seconds before the interval, her first goal of the season. Even then, Irvine scored again before the buzzer to lead 10-2 at the break.
 
The Anteaters scored five more unanswered goals to start the third, with Hovey's goal the final tally of that period. Irvine was the only team to score in the fourth, doing so twice to bring up the 17-3 final score.
 
UP NEXT
The Gauchos return to the pool to face another Irvine-based opponent on Saturday morning, taking on Concordia Irvine at 9:20 a.m. from Canyonview Aquatics Center in La Jolla. The winner of that contest will go on to face the winner of Cal State Fullerton and No. 18 Michigan; the loser will face the defeated party from that Titans-Wolverines game. There will be no live stats for either game, so stay tuned to ucsbgauchos.com for the most up-to-date schedule and results.