Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

WHITTIER, Calif. – The Whittier College Men's Water Polo team sent off their lone senior Marc-Andre Roy (Montreal, Canada) with an impressive 8-5 win Saturday morning against the University of Redlands.

The Purple & Gold avenged their earlier loss to the Bulldogs back on October 13 where they fell 7-6.  Saturday was another low scoring affair but this time around the Poets used a big second half to knock the University of Redlands out of SCIAC Post Season Tournament contention. 

In the previous matchup between the Poets and Bulldogs, Whittier was held scoreless over the final 16:00 minutes.  But this time around, Whittier outscored UR 5-2 in the second half to come away with the big win in their regular season finale.

With the win, the Poets improve to 15-13, 10-4 SCIAC and have won three of their last four handing them their second consecutive Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Post Season Tournament Berth. 

Whittier has now also earned the No. 2 seed in the SCIAC Post Season for the second straight year but this time will faceoff against No. 3 Claremont-M-S this Friday, November 16 in the semi-finals beginning at 7:00pm.

Their was only one goal scored over the first eight minutes of the game, which came from freshman Ricardo Reyes Jr. (Commerce, Calif.) who was fed by fellow freshman Eric Borunda (Whittier, Calif.).

Borunda got into the scoring category to begin the second giving WC a 2-0 advantage.  But UR would respond with two of their own that tied things up.  Carlos Heredia Viteri (Commerce, Calif.) answered with his first of the game at the 2:33 mark but on Redlands' next possession, Jason Swan would connect that sent the game into a tie 3-3 at the break.    

The third quarter proved the difference with Whittier holding the Bulldogs scoreless, while Borunda and Tyler Chung (La Canada, Calif.) would tack on the go ahead strikes.  In the fourth, Redlands attempted a comeback putting up two goals one at the start of the frame and the other coming with :02 seconds remaining in the game.  But the comeback would end up short as Reyes Jr., Kalani Fouts (Capitola, Calif.), and Hans Zdolsek (Linkoping, Sweden) would go back to back to back that put the game out of reach.

Junior goalie Murat Ersoz (Istanbul, Turkey) played all 32:00 minutes finishing with seven saves and a steal.

Whittier outshot Redlands 27-23 and was 3-for-13 on power plays.  They also held Redlands to 0-for-11 shooting on man-up opportunities, which proved crucial in the win.