CLAREMONT, Calif. – The University of Redlands Men's Water Polo team (18-8, 9-1 SCIAC) held on to beat No. 3 Pomona-Pitzer 15-13 on the road in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) play Saturday as they now sit two games ahead of the Sagehens with two games to play and they hold the season head-to-head 2-0.

Much like the game these two teams played at the Thompson Aquatic Center (TAC) in September when Redlands led 4-1 in the first quarter, the Bulldogs came out firing again as they led 5-1 with less than a minute to play in the opening quarter. Nicolas Fedotov (Miami Beach, FL), Owen Nishimura (Carlsbad, CA), Spencer Sellwood (Irvine, CA), Andrew Higginson (San Diego, CA), and Ron Gvishi (Kiryat Tiron, Israel) had the five goals with Gvishi and Nishimura adding assists.

After a Sagehen goal with :29 seconds left in the first, Alec Abrahamian (Glendale, CA) found Higginson for a 6-2 lead with seven seconds on the clock as the first quarter came to an end.

Spencer Clinton (Cypress, CA) scored the first goal of the second eight minutes with 4:42 on the clock as both defenses tightened their play. Pomona-Pitzer then scored back-to-back goals for the first time as they drew within three, 7-4, with 2:14 left in the half. A Clinton goal :15 seconds later and a Gvishi score with 1:04 to play gave Redlands a comfortable 9-4 lead.

The Sagehens, though, did not concede the last minute as they put two in the back of the net in the final :46 seconds as the Bulldogs had to settle for a 9-6 halftime advantage.  

Following a goal for Pomona-Pitzer in the first :14 seconds of the second half, Gvishi was assisted by Abrahamian :23 seconds later and Higginson then converted on a penalty to make it 11-7.

A 3-1 run over the next three plus minutes for the Sagehens got them within two for the first time since the first quarter. Dean Moody (Camarillo, CA) had the lone goal during that run.

Redlands responded to end the third with two goals over the final 1:29 as Moody scored off a Fedotov assist and Gvishi got the 14^th goal of the game as the Bulldogs who took a 14-10 lead into the final quarter.

In the fourth it was all Pomona-Pitzer across the first 6:31 as they shut out Redlands and scored three times as the lead was one, 14-13, with 1:29 left in the game. It was the first time since the first four minutes of the game that the Bulldogs did not lead by multiple goals.

Following a timeout called by head coach Ryan Hall, and a turnover coming out of the timeout, Troy Barker (Roseville, CA) recorded a steal and on the next offensive possession Moody scored with :40 seconds left. Abrahamian then got a field block on defense to seal the win.

The Bulldogs used 12 more shots (38-26) to work around a very efficient Sagehen offense that scored 13 times on those 26 shots. The two sides also combined for five penalty fouls in which Pomona-Pitzer went 2-for-2 and Redlands went 2-for-3.

Redlands will stay on the road with their final SCIAC regular season road game at the California Institute of Technology of Wednesday, November 8 at 7:00 p.m.