WATER POLO NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS : UCLA Beats Pepperdine, 10-9, Faces Cal Tonight

Javier Escobar scored four goals Friday night to lead UCLA past Pepperdine, 10-9, in the opening round of the NCAA water polo finals at the Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach.

The fourth-ranked Bruins will play top-ranked California at 6 tonight. Cal (27-1) rolled past 13th-ranked Brown (20-10) in the first game of the three-day tournament, 16-6.

The lead changed hands or was tied 19 times between fifth-ranked Pepperdine (21-9) and UCLA (23-7). UCLA had lost seven of its last 13 matches. Pepperdine had won 15 of its last 16.

UCLA’s Oliver Hill tied the match, 9-9, with his third goal with 5:44 left. Escobar’s shot with 2:17 left gave the Bruins the lead.

A slap shot by Pepperdine’s Blair Bishop at the buzzer after a length of the pool pass by goalie Wells Guthrie, glanced off the outside of the left post.

Pepperdine held UCLA’s leading scorer, Stefan Pollmann, a junior from Berlin, to one goal. In other games, second-ranked Stanford (25-5) scored on 10 of 20 first half shots to take a 10-3 lead and eventually defeat 10th-ranked Air Force (19-7), the Western Water Polo Assn. champion, 14-6.

Third-ranked UC Santa Barbara (23-7), which shared the Big West title with Pepperdine, struggled with a pesky Navy team, but outscored the Midshipmen, 5-0, in the final 5:46 and won, 16-9. Navy, the Eastern Water Polo Assn. champion, cut the Gaucho lead to 11-9 with 5:59 left in the match on the seventh goal by two-meter man Luis Nicolao.

Junior Pete Zamoyski scored four goals and Jasons Likins had three for Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara meets Stanford in the other semifinal tonight at 7:30. The championship match is Sunday night at 7:30.