Men's Water Polo Holds off Redlands on the Road

Photo: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

WHITTIER, Calif. (Sept. 22, 2021) – The Whittier College men's water polo team, the third-ranked team in Division III, faced some stiff late-game competition from a very game University of Redlands team, but held off the Bulldogs to earn its first SCIAC victory of the season.

The first quarter saw the Poets impose their will

on the Bulldogs, scoring four unanswered goals to open the game. Three of Whittier's first four goals belonged to senior utility Eric Borunda (Whittier, Calif. / La Serna), who shot at a highly efficient 80-percent clip on the night. The Bulldogs bit back in the ensuing quarter with three goals to open the period, but a trio of strikes from the likes of junior Kaan Hamerclu (Istanbul, Turkey / Istanbul Valiligi), and seniors Maxwell Murphy (Orinda, Calif. / Diablo Valley College) and Borunda allowed the Poets to take a four-goal lead into the halfway point.

Both teams began to turn up the defensive aggression over the final 16 minutes, but for the first eight, Whittier continued to have answers for the Redlands offense. Senior utility Carlos Heredia Viteri opened play with his only goal of the game and classmate Ricardo Reyes Jr. (Commerce, Calif. / Montebello) followed him to put the Poets out to a six-goal lead at one point in the quarter. With both teams seemingly at a stalemate through the middle two quarters of play, the Bulldogs broke through with three goals to end the game, two of which came on penalty fouls but not before the Poets were able to put things just out of reach. Murphy, along with junior attacker Ethan Saenz (Riverside, Calif. / Riverside City College) helped make that possible with two goals in the final quarter of play. Freshman Lars Van Os (Utrecht, Netherlands / KSG de Breul) went wire-to-wire for the first time in a SCIAC game, stopping nine Redlands shots to earn his first victory in the Purple & Gold. 

Head Coach David Kasa and the Poets will look to continue their winning ways on Saturday, Sept. 25 when they host Chapman University in the first men's water polo game at the Lillian Slade Aquatics Center in almost two years.