RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Fresno Pacific (7-18) came out of the Lancer Invitational with two wins after a great weekend of water polo. The Sunbirds went 1-1 on both days of the tournament, defeating Azusa Pacific 10-3 and Chapman 13-9, but losing to Iona 8-15 and Wagner 4-11.
Crystal Cole averaged just over ten saves a game in the goalie cage with her weekend-high 12 saves against Chapman. On offense, Borbala Toth and Yulia Blinovskya both seven goals to lead the Sunbirds for the weekend. Toth scored a goal in every game while Blinovskya had hat tricks in both of the Sunbirds’ wins.
The Sunbirds opened the weekend against Iona, and had a close game through halftime. The Sunbirds only trailed by one goal going into the third quarter, but got outscored 1-5 in the third, which led to the Sunbirds first loss of the weekend. Similarly, in the Sunbirds loss to Wagner, Fresno Pacific was outscored 0-5 in the third quarter to put that game out of reach as well.
However, on both days the Sunbirds responded well and bounced back from both losses. On Friday, the Sunbirds opened up a 5-0 at half over Azusa and never looked back, and in their win over Chapman, three Sunbirds had three goals: Blinovskya, Toth and Brittany Guerrero.
Guerrero finished the weekend with six goals, followed by Jenny Diebert and Katelyn Ball with five and four goals, respectively.
The Sunbirds will head back to Bakersfield on Friday, March 27 for another one-day mini-tournament, and then will finish off their regular season at home with Concordia on Saturday, March 28 and their own tournament on Saturday, April 4.