Dec. 1, 2002

Los Alamitos, Calif. - Senior Andrew Stoddard notched his third hat trick of the season and goalkeeper Russell Bernstein tallied 11 goalie saves to lead the Golden Bears over the Pepperdine Waves, 9-8, to win the MPSF Championship match this evening at the Joint Forces Training Base. The win gives the Bears an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, which will be held Dec. 7th and 8th at Loyola Marymount University.

Cal took control of the game in the third quarter, breaking a 5-5 tie, outscoring the Waves three to one. Todd Hylton and Chris Lathrop each scored two goals for Cal. Jesse Smith led Pepperdine, the MSPF regular season champion and #1 seed in the tournament, with four goals.

The game started off wild, as Cal took a 4-3 lead after one quarter. Stoddard scored the first (6:02) and fourth (0:06) goals of the quarter for Cal. Pepperdine tied the game 5-5 at the half as Scott Harvey found the back of the net at 0:32 to tie the contest. In the pivotal third quarter, Smith scored his third goal of the game at 6:43, giving Pepperdine a 6-5 lead, but Cal came back with three straight goals. Hylton scored at 6:04, Lathrop at 5:00 and Will Quist at 3:14 to give the Golden Bears an 8-6 lead after three. Stoddard's goal at 2:51 in the fourth proved to be the game-winner. Bernstein recorded four of his goalie saves in the fourth quarter for Cal.

"Our goal was to make it to the NCAA Tournament," said Cal Head Coach Kirk Everist. "We played a tough game tonight. Jesse Smith was great against us. The last time we played against them they beat us badly, so this was a great win. With Bernstein's performance in the first round he saved our team with great defense which was able to move us on to the winners bracket. Our players played their roles on defense tonight, to where they kept us in the game. We did not give Pepperdine any easy looks. We are a very good defensive team."

Cal joins Queens College, the Collegiate Water Polo Association qualifier, UC San Diego, the Western Water Polo Association qualifier and an at large team to be chosen by the NCAA Men's Water Polo Committee, in the 2002 NCAA Men's Water Polo Tournament.

For complete tournament results, log on to www.longbeachstate.com.

CAL (19-6)     4-1-3-1---9
PEPP (16-10) 3-2-1-2---8

Scoring:
CAL: Andrew Stoddard 3, Todd Hylton 2, Chris Lathrop 2, Attila Banhidy 1, Will Quist 1
Pepperdine: Jesse Smith 4, Jeremy Grubbs 1, Scott Harvey 1, Karl Niehaus 1, Michael Hausmann 1
Goalies Saves: Russell Bernsetin (Cal) 11, Michael Soltis (Pepp) 4