Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The No. 2 seeded Whittier College Men's Water Polo team got the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championships underway Friday afternoon at the PCC Aquatic Center.
The Purple & Gold dismissed No. 7 Chapman University 12-9 to advance to tomorrows (Saturday, November 19) semi-final match-up with No. 3 Claremont-M-S with game time set for 11:45am. The only meeting this season these two programs had, the Poets came out on top winning 11-7 back on Oct. 19.
With the win the Poets improve their conference winning streak to seven games and move to 19-11, 8-1 SCIAC, while sweeping their head to head match-up on the season with Chapman 2-0.
The Poets jumped out of the gates quickly blanking the Panthers following the first eight minutes, while adding three goals themselves from Aidan Tol (Tustin, Calif.), Tim Aakhus (Bakersfield, Calif.), and Massimiliano Mirarchi (Rome, Italy).
CU struck back though to begin the second to pull within one but that's as close as they would get as Whittier would go into the half adding another three tallies from Marko Monic (Zagreb, Croatia), Aakhus, and Mirarchi that extended the lead to 6-2.
Out of the break Chapman outscored Whittier 3-2 to stay within striking distance at 8-5 but they couldn't gain any more ground as a deadlocked 4-4 final stanza would give the victory to Whittier.
Mirarchi totaled five goals for the game and was joined by Aakhus who added three.
Other Poet scorers included Mihailo Vuja (Belgrade, Serbia), and Emilio Maldonado (Chula Vista, Calif.).
