University of California, Santa Barbara

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The No. 14 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team did an avian double on the second day of the Rare Air Challenge, defeating the Wagner Seahawks, 20-10, before taking down the hosting Air Force Falcons, 21-14. Oliver Sherwood led a balanced Gaucho attack with a hat-trick in the first game, though Sloan Brown, Charlie Johnson, Finn Genc, Dylan Morris and Hayden Tully all had multi-goal efforts against Wagner as well. Johnson scored four more against Air Force, with Luigi Canepa adding the same amount. Landon Lassahn and Genc also had hat-tricks against the Falcons.
 
No. 14 UC SANTA BARBARA 20, WAGNER 10
The Gauchos soared past the Seahawks with relative ease in the early fixture, taking a five-goal lead in the first quarter and refusing to look back. Johnson, Genc, Noah Loo, Brown and Sherwood tallied the game's first five goals in that order to get Santa Barbara off on the right foot before the Seahawks got two goals back. Each side scored three times in the second quarter — Lassahn, Sherwood and Camren Simoncelli the scorers for the Gauchos — and the scoreline read 8-5 in Santa Barbara's favor at halftime.
 
The Gauchos really gained separation after the break, out-scoring Wagner, 7-2, in the third quarter. Including Simoncelli's goal in the final minute of the first half, Santa Barbara assembled a second 5-0 run of the game to start the third quarter, with Genc, Canepa, Tully and Sherwood the scorers after the break. The Gauchos then settled into a pattern of answering any Wagner goal with two of their own. The Seahawks scored their first goal of the second half, then Tyler Roller and Sean O'Brien responded with two. Wagner scored with 40 seconds left in the third, then Tully scored before the buzzer and Dylan Morris added the first goal of the fourth quarter. Johnson, Preston Bouch and Kyle Franks also scored in the fourth, with Morris tallying a second in the final minute of what was a five-goal final frame for Santa Barbara.
 
No. 14 UC SANTA BARBARA 21, AIR FORCE 14
The Gauchos went back-and-forth with their hosts in the first quarter of the evening fixture, but pulled away with a dominant second quarter. Genc got the scoring going with the first two goals of the game, but the Falcons came back with three of their own to take the lead. Santa Barbara swung back with Tully, Johnson and Canepa, but Air Force refused to go away and re-tied the game at 5-5 with a minute left in the quarter. Canepa un-tied it with 11 seconds to go, and the Gauchos led from that point on.
 
Johnson and Canepa both dented the twine inside the first minute of the second quarter, and Canepa fired home another before the Falcons could respond. Santa Barbara would go on to score seven times in the second, while holding Air Force to just three. Kai Ross was responsible for one of those Gaucho, with Genc and Lassahn also on the scoresheet. At halftime, Santa Barbara had a 13-8 edge. That edge grew to 17-10 after the third, with goals from Lassahn (twice), Franks and Tully. Four goals from the Gauchos matched four from the Falcons in the fourth to wrap up the game, with Simoncelli, Bouch and Sean Keane adding their names to the scoresheet alongside Johnnson's fourth of the day.
 
UP NEXT
Santa Barbara finishes its weekend in Colorado with one more match on Sunday, taking on Occidental for a third and final time this season at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time.