BERKELEY – A match that went down to the very last possession ended in the win column for the No. 4-ranked Cal men's water polo team as a six-goal day from senior Johnny Hooper led the way in an offensive slugfest and the Bears picked up a 13-12 victory over No. 5 UC Santa Barbara at Spieker Aquatics Complex.

Leading 10-9 with just over five minutes to play, a scoring run helped Cal (15-3) build its biggest advantage of the day. A power play goal by Nikos Delagrammatikas came courtesy of rapid fire passing by Hooper and Safak Simsek and put the Bears up 11-9. After a goal by UC Santa Barbara stemmed the tide for a moment, Delagrammatikas struck again, this time firing high from long range to put Cal back up by two.

Hooper's sixth goal of the day proved critical and was emblematic of the type of day the senior had. After darting into the passing lane to grab a steal, he took off and swam away from his UCSB pursuers, calmly beating the goalkeeper to make it 13-10 with 3:42 left.

UC Santa Barbara (16-8) didn't go away quietly and a power play goal by Cole Brosnan cut Cal's lead to just one with 33 seconds left. The Bears ran the clock down to less than a second and, after a time out by UCSB, the Gauchos' final shot from three-quarters tank sailed high and wide to preserve the Cal victory.

"We did a pretty good job of maintaining on the defensive end at 2-meter defense and we were able to get some turnovers that led to 'easy goals', transition and counter-attack goals, but we didn't do a very good job of keeping six defenders in the pool at the same time," Cal head coach Kirk Everist said "That allowed them to get a rhythm and they were pretty efficient on the six on five. That's what makes it a really tight game."

Neither team could separate from one another throughout the first half as both teams took advantage of the man advantage to score early and often. Cal led 4-2 after one period and 7-6 at halftime but UCSB came back to tie the game at 8 late in the third period. Hooper eventually snuck a shot past the keeper with less than one second on the clock, giving Cal a two-goal lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Hooper did a little bit of everything in the win, adding five steals, three ejections earned, one assist and one block to his six-goal day. The senior from Los Angeles now has 233 career goals for the Golden Bears and sits just two behind Ivan Rackov for second on Cal's all-time list.

Delagrammatikas scored twice in the victory while Spencer Farrar, Vassilis Tzavaras, Simsek, Jordan Hoover and Odysseas Masmanidis all added one goal apiece. Bernardo Carelli made seven saves, including a few at point-blank range, for Cal in the cage.

Sunday's match represents the final non-conference contest of the regular season for the Bears as focus shifts to MPSF play for the next three weeks. Cal hosts UCLA on Saturday at noon to kick off conference play, travel to USC on Nov. 3 and return to Spieker Aquatics Complex on Nov. 10 to host Stanford. All three matches will be broadcast by Pac-12 Networks and start times for both the USC and Stanford matches have yet to be announced.