The San Diego State water polo team played host to their annual Aztec Invitational this past weekend with back-to-back games on both Saturday and Sunday.

The tournament kicked off on Saturday morning with a match against the No. T-20 Wagner College Seahawks, which had a 10-8 overall record. This game was a close one that came down to the final period against the Seahawks. But the Aztecs ran out of clock and couldn’t complete the comeback as freshman utility Caroline Israels’ late game-tying goal attempt was stopped by the Seahawks’ goalie with seconds to go. SDSU fell 6-5 to the Seahawks.

The Aztecs rebounded in the next game against Harvard University in another close match that SDSU was able to eventually pull away from in the middle of the fourth period after a 5-5 tie. The Aztecs scored two unanswered goals for a 7-5 win. Junior driver Anique Hermann led the way for the team with three goals on five shot attempts and a team-high five steals that propelled the team to a much-needed win going into Sunday.

The final day of the tournament started out much like how the Harvard game ended, with a potent Aztec offense jumping ahead early against the Bucknell University Bisons.

The Aztecs overpowered the Bisons and ran away with the game, closing them out for a 10-3 victory with contributions coming from every side of the team in one of the more complete games of the season.

The final match against No. 8 Princeton University, who entered the game with a 16-1 overall record, was a close one until halftime when the score was knotted up at 2-2.

However, the fourth period was a different story as the Tigers went in with a 5-3 lead and quickly added two goals on top of that to go up 7-3. Princeton relied on their stingy defense, which pestered the Aztecs all game long, to complete the 7-4 victory against SDSU.

The Aztecs finished the invite with a 13-9 record after splitting the four-game tournament. They next compete in the Chapman Mini Invitational in Orange this Saturday, an invite in which SDSU will play three games. The Aztecs will be looking to right the ship as they get closer to the end of the season.

Photo by Monica Linzmeier, photo editor