PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The University of California, Merced men's water polo team knocked off LIU 20-14 in its fourth and final game at the Harvard Invitational on Sunday afternoon. This is UC Merced's first ever win over a NCAA Division 1 opponent in any sport. LIU is in Brooklyn, N.Y. and is a member of NWPC and NEC.

Camden Peterson led the Bobcats (2-15) with six goals in the historical win. Vincent Labonte scored five goals, while five other Bobcats scored at least one.

UC Merced's 20 goals tied its season-high and marked the most in 23 all-time meetings against NCAA Division 1 foes.

Both Peterson and Labonte got on the board early with a goal in the first two minutes to give the Bobcats a 2-1 lead. However, LIU got in an offensive rhythm and outscored the Bobcats 6-3 the rest of the quarter to take a 7-5 lead. It was 7-4 before freshman Hayden Markell scored for the Bobcats with seven seconds left.

Markell's goal sparked a run that carried into the second quarter. Including his goal, head coach Johnny Bega's squad scored five in a row with the run stretching all the way into the final minute of the first half. Aydann Hambruch deposited two shots into the back of the net, while Evan Ladeairous and Labonte also scored. LIU then scored two goals in a wild final 25 seconds of the first half, and Labonte had one more as the Bobcats led 10-9 at intermission.

Peterson opened the third quarter with back-to-back goals to put the Bobcats up 12-9. After three minutes of scoreless polo, Howie Zeff extended the lead to four with his first goal of the match. Both teams traded goals for the next few minutes with Oscar Luna scoring the final goal of the third quarter to push the Bobcats lead to 16-11. Overall, the Bobcats outscored LIU 6-2 in the most dominant quarter of the match.

The Bobcats deficit was cut to 16-13 two minutes into the fourth quarter but Andrew Jones and Labonte immediately built the lead right back to five goals with four and a half minutes left. UC Merced led by at least four goals the rest of the way and Labonte put the exclamation point on the win with the Bobcats 20^th goal inside of 90 seconds for the 20-14 victory.

Matthew Lloyd was the Bobcats winning goalkeeper in the monumental win.

Harvard Invitational

Overall, the Bobcats went 1-3 at the Harvard Invitational. UC Merced fell 10-7 to Wagner College and 15-11 to Mount St. Mary's on Saturday, and then lost 17-14 to 20^th-ranked Navy on Sunday before beating LIU.

Peterson and William Pezold scored eleven goals apiece over the weekend. Pezold had five goals each against Mount St. Mary's and Navy, and one against Wagner. Aside from Peterson's six against LIU, he had a hat trick against Wagner and two goals vs. Mount St. Mary's.

Labonte (9), Jones (6), Ladeairous (4), Luna (3), Zeff (2), Hambruch (2), Markell (2), Tommy Bauer (1), Misha Golovatyi (1) accounted for the Bobcats remaining goals. Ladeairous scored a goal in every game.

UC Merced played arguably their best water polo of the season over the weekend and found themselves tied in the third quarter with both Wagner and nationally-ranked Navy. The Bobcats were tied with Mount St. Mary's in the second quarter.

Looking ahead, UC Merced will begin play at the Julian Frasier Memorial against the host and 17^th-ranked Santa Clara University on Friday, October 25 at 1:30pm in Santa Clara, Calif.