T-No. 21 San Diego State water polo dropped its home opener, 5-2, to No. 12 Loyola Marymount University on March 9 at the Aztec Aquaplex.
It was the first ever conference loss for SDSU, which dropped to an all-time record of 27-1 in Gold Coast Conference play.
The Aztecs have now lost five consecutive games, and are off to a slow start at 5-9 after starting the year in the national rankings.
SDSU had big expectations coming into the season, and senior captain Courtney Jarvis said that going forward the team will be doing all it can to get back on track.
“You better believe that we are coming out harder,” Jarvis said. I think none of us are happy with this loss and we need to come out and push (our opponents) around a little bit.”
SDSU went into halftime down, 1-0, a deficit which quickly became 4-0 after the Lions (11-10) scored three goals in less than three minutes to start the second half.
Freshman driver Karli Canale scored two goals to keep the Aztecs in striking distance, but the Lions added another goal to seal the victory.
Head coach Carin Crawford praised the teams defense, but said SDSU struggled with putting the ball in the net.
“I thought we had a great defensive game to only give only two goals in the first half was pretty great defense,” Crawford said. “Obviously the offensive end was a problem for us, (as) we didn’t really get going until the third quarter.”
The two goals for Canale were her seventh and eighth of the season, and Crawford said that her young player is already bringing a lot to the team.
“She really brings a lot of offense to us and we need to compliment her better,” Crawford said. “The way you do that is by having a strong center play, and for us we were a little out of sort.”
Canale is a product of La Jolla High School, and has always dreamed of playing for San Diego State.
“It feels pretty good,” Canale said. “I’ve always wanted to play Division-1 Water Polo and when I found out I could play in my hometown I was really happy.”
Jarvis said that the team was hampered by its slow start.
“I thought we came out kind of slow and we didn’t come out with the resilience on offence that we needed to,” Jarvis said. ” I feel like our defensive game was on point, and I was really proud of that, but I don’t think we pushed out counter enough in the beginning.”
