LA JOLLA, Calif. – A pair of victories provided a great opening to the 2018 season for the Cal men's water polo team as the Bears began with a 16-5 win over Air Force and closed with a 19-3 triumph over Concordia on day one of the Triton Invitational hosted by UC San Diego.

With Saturday's victories, Cal now moves on to the winner's bracket on Sunday with a 10:30 a.m. game against either UC Irvine, UC San Diego or La Verne. A victory in that game would move the Bears into a 3 p.m. game while a loss would mean a 3:15 p.m. start.

Cal 16, Air Force 5

An early morning didn't mean a slow start for the Bears as a 6-2 lead at the end of one period turned into a 10-2 advantage by halftime and Cal rolled to a convincing victory to open the season.

Odysseas Masmanidis helped the Bears build the early advantage, finding the net three times in the first period to clinch a hat trick right away. Vassilis Tzavaras and Nikos Delagrammatikas added goals and freshman Mateus Stellet converted a 6 on 5 chance to score his first collegiate goal.

Cal's defense took over in the second period with a clean eight minutes on the scoresheet allowing the Bears to add to the lead. Chase Hamming picked up his first two goals of the season while Tzavaras and Delagrammatikas each added another.

Bernardo Carelli drew the start in the cage and made six saves in one half of action. Spencer Tagg took over for the second half and stopped three shots. Hamming, Masmanidis and Delagrammatikas each recorded a hat trick while Tzavaras and Gianni Taranto each scored two goals. Stellet, Miles O'Brien-Schridde and Jack Deely each scored their first collegiate goal and Safak Simsek added three assists in the victory.

Cal 19, Concordia 3

The Bears put a punctuation mark on a good first day of action as another one-sided first half set the tone and Cal cruised to a win over the Eagles.

In much the same fashion as their opening win over Air Force, the Bears got rolling on offense early to put the game out of reach. Cal's Greek contingent played a big role again with Masmanidis scoring four times, Tzavaras adding three goals and Delagrammatikas scoring once to help Cal build a 12-2 lead by halftime. Spencer Farrar added two goals while Deely and Simsek scored one apiece in the first half.

The second half brought more career firsts for the Bears with Marko Valecic and David Feingold each scoring their first two collegiate goals, Joe Molina adding his first and Tamir Avital finding the net for the first time himself. Deely added another goal to round out the scoring. Carelli returned to action in the cage and made seven saves before Anthony Rethans made his collegiate debut in relief and made five saves of his own.