COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Cal Beats UC Irvine in Water Polo

This year’s UC Irvine water polo tournament gave Anteater Coach Ted Newland a big headache.

First, Newland tried to accommodate his fellow coaches by pairing teams in a nonbracketed format.

Then, he watched his Anteaters lose four of five matches this weekend, including a 9-7 loss to California in the third-place match Sunday at Corona del Mar High.

The tournament field featured the top eight teams in the nation, according to last week’s American Water Polo Coaches Assn. top 20 rankings, and although Pepperdine won the championship match--defeating USC, 6-5, in overtime--Cal Coach Steve Heaston downplayed its significance.

“Us not winning the championship is no big deal,” Heaston said. “Here you get good competition and you can find out where your team stands with the best.”

During the weekend, Irvine lost twice to top-ranked Cal, once to second-ranked Stanford and once to fourth-ranked USC.

According to Newland, the 14 tournament coaches agreed to group the teams into “north” and “south” pools. The teams in opposite pools played each other in a round-robin format, with the top four teams in each pool advancing to Sunday’s finals.

“We played the toughest schedule of anybody,” Newland said. “It showed me we need to work on a lot of things.

“But this tournament doesn’t really mean anything and the conference championship really doesn’t matter either,” he said. “I don’t remember how many conference titles I’ve won. It’s the NCAA tournament that counts.

“I always think we can win an NCAA championship,” he said. “These kids work so hard, that’s why I love to do this. They’ll bust their (butts) for the old man.... Trouble is, they’ll try too hard sometimes.”

Irvine tried to rally from an 8-4 deficit with 5:01 remaining Sunday against Cal.

Steve Gill and Pablo Yrizar, who each scored twice, tallied in the final five minutes to draw the Anteaters to within 8-6 with 1:37 remaining.

But Cal’s Troy Barnhart, who had three goals, put the match out of reach by scoring from two meters to give the Bears a 9-6 lead with 1:03 remaining.

Tournament Notes

Cal’s Chris Oeding, formerly of Corona del Mar High, scored three goals in the victory over Irvine and had a team-high 11 for the tournament.... Five of USC’s seven starters graduated from Sunny Hills, including Danny Leyson, who scored two goals for the Trojans in the loss to Pepperdine in the championship match. Goalie Andrew Tinseth, also from Sunny Hills, had 14 saves for USC. Zachary Holder, formerly of Foothill High, had one goal for Pepperdine and the assist to Alex Asta, who tied the match, 5-5, with one second remaining in regulation. In nonconference women’s soccer:

UC Irvine 1, San Diego 0--Sophomore Jaycee Leitner scored 10 minutes into the match on an assist by Katie Ralph and Carmen Morell. Leitner has scored in three consecutive matches and has a team-high six goals for the Anteaters (4-3-1).

Amee Chapman had three saves in her third shutout of the season for UCI. She has six career shutouts, which ties her for second with Valerie Dehn on the school’s all-time list.

In nonconference men’s soccer:

St. Mary’s 3, Cal State Fullerton 1--Adam Bliss scored with five minutes remaining to give visiting St. Mary’s (2-3) a 2-0 lead. Eddie Soto scored for the Titans 30 seconds later, but Karl Owen scored for St. Mary’s with a minute remaining. Fullerton is 4-2.

San Jose State 3, UC Irvine 1 (OT)--Matthew Ball scored the tying goal with 13 minutes left in regulation for San Jose State (5-1-2). Four minutes after Daniel Ortega gave the Spartans the lead a minute into the second overtime period, Ball scored his second goal to put the match out of reach.

Dave Weidner gave the Anteaters (3-1) an early lead with a goal midway through the first half.