In the End, California Is Champion--Again : Water polo: Bears win their 10th NCAA championship, beating UCLA, 7-6, on goal with 35 seconds to play.

Chris Oeding’s goal from five meters out with 35 seconds left gave California its 10th NCAA water polo championship as the Golden Bears defeated UCLA, 7-6, at Belmont Plaza Sunday.

It was the second consecutive title for Cal, which has won four of the previous five championships. Cal finished the season 26-1, the lone loss coming against UCLA.

“I didn’t think (UCLA) could play better than when they beat us, but they did,” Cal Coach Steve Heaston said.

UCLA took the initiative and never trailed until Oeding’s goal. The Bruins led, 6-4, at the end of three quarters.

But Cal’s defense and a rough fourth quarter were more than UCLA could handle.

“We couldn’t establish a normal set (two-meter position) and couldn’t seem to get a normal foul,” UCLA Coach Guy Baker said. “We couldn’t generate any offense, and that fed their counterattack.”

Chris Humbert, Cal’s senior two-meter man, was named the tournament’s most valuable player for the second consecutive year.

“This year I feel more relieved than happy,” Humbert said. “At the start of the fourth quarter I thought ‘My God, they’re not giving up.’ ”

UCLA’s Oliver Will led the early charge. On a counterattack Will passed cross-tank to Gary O’Brien, who scored to give UCLA a 1-0 lead with 3:26 left in the first quarter.

A minute later, Will skipped a shot off the water from eight meters out to give the Bruins a 2-0 lead.

Oeding said the reason UCLA was able to come out so fast was because Cal was too relaxed--not too confident.

“We were concentrating on being relaxed--too relaxed,” Oeding said.

The winning goal came on a six-on-five advantage for Cal, which tried to get the ball to Humbert.

“We moved Humbert out as a decoy, hoping that a man would follow, and the man did,” Heaston said. “We wanted Oeding to take the shot, and if not him, then Dirk Zeien.”

Oeding and Zeien each had two goals to lead Cal.

For Heaston, the effort took a bit of soul-searching at halftime, down 3-2.

“We talked about our tentativeness on offense, our tentativeness while driving and how to get back to our style of offense in the second half.

“We came from behind five or six times this year like that,” Heaston said. “It takes a lot of character to be rated No. 1 all year and play like we did in the fourth quarter.”

In other matches:

Pepperdine 9, UC Irvine 7--In the highest finish for Pepperdine (24-7), Geoffrey Clark and Steve Long each scored three goals in the third-place game. Steve Gill and Marc Hunt scored twice for Irvine (21-9).

Cal State Long Beach 12, UC San Diego 10--Barry Larson scored three goals for Long Beach (16-11), which led, 11-7, going into the last quarter in winning fifth place. Mike Burke and Mark Napier each added two goals for Long Beach. Gary Seelhorst and Greg Goodrich each scored three for San Diego.

Slippery Rock 9, Navy 8--Slippery Rock (26-7) led, 9-6, in the fourth quarter and held on to beat Navy for the fifth time this season to finish seventh. Christopher Tomsheck scored three goals for Slippery Rock, and Peter Frost scored three for Navy (20-10).