UC IRVINE WATER POLO TOURNAMENT : Humbert’s Five Goals Carry Cal

California’s water polo team won the NCAA title last season, but left behind one piece of business. A one-goal loss to Pepperdine marred what would have been a perfect record, and Cal finished 29-1.

Chris Humbert and Eriks Krumins, Cal’s two first-team All-Americans, had that on their minds Saturday afternoon, when the Golden Bears played their second game of the UC Irvine tournament. Cal’s opponent? Pepperdine.

Neither team scored in the first four minutes, but then Humbert scored three of his five goals in the final three minutes of the first quarter to help Cal take a six-goal halftime lead and an eventual 9-4 victory at Corona del Mar High School.

Cal claimed a spot in a semifinal game against Cal State Long Beach at 9:20 a.m. today by winning all three of its games Saturday. The Golden Bears opened with a 12-5 victory over Fresno State in the morning and finished the day with an 8-4 victory over Stanford, also considered among the nation’s best teams.

UCLA, which played its three preliminary games Friday, is the only other team that hasn’t lost in the tournament. The Bruins will play Stanford at 10:30 a.m. in the other semifinal.

The final of the 12-team tournament is scheduled at 4:20 p.m. today, with the third-place game at 5:30.

The winner of the UC Irvine tournament has won the NCAA title in six of the past 10 years. Last season was an exception. Cal withdrew from the Irvine tournament in the wake of the deaths of three students in a Berkeley fraternity house fire. A number of team members belong to the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity, and some of them lived in the building that burned.

Humbert’s room was burned in the fire.

“Five guys who were traveling on the A team lived in the house,” Humbert said. “We had nowhere to live, no clothes. I had a pair shorts and a shirt, and that was about it.”

The team decided to adhere to the wishes of some of those close to the tragedy who did not want to play.

“We needed to regroup,” Krumins said.

Saturday against Pepperdine, Cal had the formidable task of trying to slow Pepperdine’s Geoffrey Clark, a senior from Australia and another first-team All-American last season.

“I thought our defense was the key,” said Krumins, a senior from Newport Harbor High School. “Geoff Clark and Chris are probably the best college two-meter men in the country. Geoff Clark is going to score two, three, four goals. You want to limit him, keep him from scoring six or seven.”

Cal held him to two goals.

Pepperdine tried to key on Humbert, but drives by Cal players drew defenders away from him, freeing him up to score.

Pepperdine trailed, 8-1, in the third quarter, but began eating into the lead. Alex Asta’s goal with 3:06 remaining made the score 8-4, injecting a bit of suspense to the game.

“It was late enough that it wasn’t a worry, but we never want to finish on a bad note,” Krumins said.

Pepperdine’s last real opportunity came when the Waves had a 2-on-1 situation on the right side. Krumins faked toward the man with the ball, who tried to pass off, only to watch Krumins back up and intercept the ball.

“I just stole the ball,” Krumins said. “We got a goal on the other end, and that was about it.”