CLOVIS, Calif. – The University of California, Merced men's water polo team took down Fresno Pacific University in wire-to-wire fashion on Saturday morning.
The Bobcats (7-6) win was their second over the NCAA Division II foe in the month of September.
Killian Nguyen found the back of the net on the Bobcats first possession and finished with a career-high four goals on the day. Camden Peterson also scored four goals for the fourth time in his freshman campaign.
William Pezold scored twice with Andrew Jones scoring the Bobcats final goal of the day.
UC Merced led 3-0 after three and a half minutes of action and held a 4-1 lead at the end of the first quarter. Scoring was hard to come by in the second quarter as the two teams combined for just three goals, with the Bobcats scoring two of them to take a 6-2 lead into halftime.
A minute into the second half, Pezold deposited a shot into the goal and extended the Bobcats lead to a then game-high five goals at 7-2. The Bobcats also led by five goals at 8-3 and 10-5 after scoring with an extra attacker on.
Head coach Johnny Bega's squad led 10-6 entering the fourth quarter before FPU cut the deficit to two goals less than three minutes in. Inside of four minutes, Jones scored the Bobcats eleventh goal which would end up being the difference maker in the 11-10 victory. The Bobcats had a multi-goal lead for all but the final three seconds of regulation.
Matthew Lloyd played all 32 minutes in the cage and tallied 11 saves.
Up next, UC Merced will play Cal Maritime and Westcliff in the inaugural California Pacific Conference Round Robin in Vallejo, Calif., on Sunday, September 24. The Bobcats start the day against the host Keelhaulers at 10:00am at the PEAC Pool.
