Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

LA VERNE, Calif. – The Whittier College Men's Water Polo team won their second straight Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) game Wednesday afternoon as they cruised past La Verne 17-11.

The Purple & Gold improve to 4-7, 2-0 SCIAC, while La Verne drops to 2-9, 1-2 SCIAC.

The Leopards struck first at Las Flores Pool on their opening possession but that was the only time they would hold a lead as Carlos Heredia Viteri (Commerce, Calif.), Hans Zdolsek (Linkoping, Sweden), and Ricardo Reyes Jr. (Commerce, Calif.) would go back to back to back to put Whittier up 3-1.

Then with :30 seconds to play in the quarter, freshman Eric Borunda (Whittier, Calif.) would add his first of the game putting WC on top 4-2.

Whittier extended their lead over the next eight minutes outscoring ULV 7-3.  The Poets and Leopards swapped goals early in the frame keeping the score close.  But again WC would string together a run of five unanswered from Heredia Viteri and Zdolsek that put the Poets up 11-5 at intermission.

La Verne attempted a comeback in the second half outscoring the Poets 2-1 in the third quarter and putting up another four tallies in the fourth.  But the comeback would stall as Whittier would tack on five themselves over the final eight minutes that secured the win.

Whittier outshot La Verne 29-19 and was 1-for-7 on power plays.  Heredia Viteri was lethal on the evening collecting a career high seven goals, an assist and three steals giving him a great chance to be named the SCIAC Athlete of the Week. 

Murat Ersoz (Istanbul, Turkey) played all 32:00 minutes between the posts and finished with four saves and a steal.     

Whittier remains on the road this Saturday, September 29 as they take on Claremont-M-S in a big SCIAC showdown beginning at 11:00am.