<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Over the course of a turbulent weekend in Stockton, CA, at the NorCal Water Polo tournament, the Long Beach State men’s water polo team upsetting the number five and six-ranked teams in the country, while winning three of four games to take fifth place in the tournament. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Saturday Action:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n A pair of hat tricks led the No. 8 Forty-Niners (3-4) to victory over the No. 9 UCSD Tritons (9-2) for the second time this season, but Long Beach couldn’t upset the No. 1 California Bears (6-0).<\/span><\/p>\n The Niners started out strong against UCSD in their first game of the annual tournament, scoring five goals in the first half to the Tritons’ three. The Niners broke away in the third period, outscoring the Tritons 3-1 to take an 8-4 lead heading into the fourth. Long Beach State gave up three more goals in the fourth period while only scoring two, but held on to take the victory from UCSD, 10-7. Two Niners scored hat tricks in the match to lead the scoring; <\/span>Kevin vanHaaster<\/span><\/a><\/span> and <\/span>Jeff Greenwood<\/span><\/a><\/span> notched three goals each. <\/span>Jake Kinne<\/span><\/a><\/span> scored two for his squad, and Aleksander Petrovic and Ash Blythen both contributed one goal apiece. Derek Weibe-Bailey had 14 goal saves in the game.<\/span><\/p>\n In their afternoon game, the Niners matched up against the first-ranked team in the country and alma mater of Long Beach head coach <\/span>Gavin Arroyo<\/span><\/a><\/span>, California. The Golden Bears got out to an early start, outscoring the 49ers 3-0 in the first period. Long Beach held the Bears to only one goal in the second and scored one of their own, but went into the half trailing 4-1. The Niners scored three in the second half, but it was not enough to catch the Bears who scored four, and sealed the victory winning 8-4. Long Beach’s four goals scored were spread among the squad; one goal each was scored by <\/span>Jordan Koeppen<\/span><\/a><\/span>, <\/span>Justin Koeppen<\/span><\/a><\/span>, <\/span>Jeff Greenwood<\/span><\/a><\/span> and Ash Blythen. 49er goalie Derek Weibe-Bailey notched 13 goal saves in the match against the Bears.<\/span><\/p>\n Sunday Action:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n The 49ers (4-4) started off the second day of the NorCal Tournament in style, taking down the No. 5 Pepperdine Waves (5-3) in a high-scoring 15-11 victory.<\/span><\/p>\n Less than 24 hours after losing to the top-ranked Cal Bears, Long Beach rebounded to upset the Waves and earn the chance to play for fifth-place in the sixteen-team tournament. Long Beach and Pepperdine came out of the starting gate evenly, with both squads notching three goals in the first period. The second period was dominated by the Niners, however, outscoring the Waves 6-2 to take a 9-5 lead into halftime. The Niners were able to hold onto their first-half momentum and go goal-for-goal with the Waves in the second half, with each squad scoring six. The second period goal differential won the high-scoring contest for the Niners, victorious over the Waves by a score of 15-11.<\/span><\/p>\n The Niners then took aim at the Lions of Loyola Marymount. Long Beach came out strong, outscoring the sixth-ranked squad 2-1. The Lions had an answer for the 49ers in the second period though, scoring four and holding Long Beach to only one, and LMU took a 5-3 lead into the second half. The Beach caught up in the third period, scoring two more of their own while shutting out the Lions. Tied at five going into the fourth period, LMU scored first forcing the Niners to play catch-up. Catch up they did behind the efforts of senior Ash Blythen. Blythen scored both of his goals in the fourth period, one to tie the game and the other to put the Niners ahead of Loyola Marymount. The Beach held on for the win, beating LMU 7-6 to take fifth place in the tournament.<\/span><\/p>\n Three 49ers scored two goals each in the game, including Blythen, senior Jake Kinne<\/a> and junior Justin Koeppen<\/a>. True freshman Shane Luth<\/a> also stepped up for his squad with one goal in the game. Junior Derek Weibe-Bailey recorded 11 goalie saves for his squad.<\/span><\/p>\n Next up for The Beach is a rematch against LMU; the 49ers are 1-1 against the Lions this season. Previous to today’s matchup, the Lions defeated Long Beach in San Diego, Calif. at the UCSD Triton Invitational. The 49ers will take on Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles Saturday, September 27th at 12:00 p.m. PT.<\/span><\/p>\n From LBSU reports<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Upsetting two national powers, the 49ers took fifth at the NorCal tournament over the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5563"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5563"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}