Oct. 11, 2002

Long Beach, Calif. - The California men's water polo team survived a fourth quarter rally by Long Beach State to hold on for a 5-4 victory over the #9-ranked 49ers Friday afternoon at the 49er Campus Pool in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) contest. The Bears (8-3/1-1 MPSF) led 5-1 early in the fourth, only to see the 49ers (9-9/0-2 MPSF) score three consecutive goals to make a game of it.

Cals defense and the play of junior goalie Tim Kates kept the 49ers in check throughout most of the game. Kates recorded eight goalie saves on the afternoon, including two saves off 4-meter penalty shots by The Beach, one by Erik Geoffroy in the first quarter and the second by Pat Logan in the third. The 49ers managed 15 shots on the day, but scored just four goals.

After Andrew Stoddard found the back of the net at the 5:58 mark in the fourth quarter, the 49ers mounted a comeback. Nathan Allard scored at 5:33, Aaron Holloway at 2:58 and Kellyn Carlson at 1:56 to pull LBSU to within 5-4. Long Beach had a chance to tie the game and send it into overtime as they had the ball with 0:22 left in the game. The 49ers worked the clock down to 0:10 before an errant pass was stolen by a Cal defender, ending the game.

Cal jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first quarter as Attila Banhidy scored the first of his two goals at the 5:49 mark. Chris Lathrop scored at 3:56 and then Banhidy scored at 4:25 in the second quarter pushing the Golden Bear advantage to 3-0 at the half. Long Beach scored its first goal of the game at 4:15 in the third as David Del Grande scored, but Cal answered right back as Will Quist tallied at 3:48, giving Cal a 4-1 lead after three.

Cal will travel to USC on Saturday at a time to be determined at McDonald's Swim Stadium.

CAL 2 1 1 1 -- 5
LBSU 0 0 1 3 -- 4

Scoring: Cal: Attila Banhidy 2, Chris Lathrop 1, Will Quist 1, Andrew Stoddard 1
LBSU: Nathan Allard 1, Aaron Holloway 1, David Del Grande 1, Kellyn Carlson 1
Goalie Saves: Michael Konstas (LBSU) 6, Tim Kates (Cal) 8