Women's Water Polo

Women's Water Polo SCIAC Championship (Day Two)
Cal Lutheran, Pomona-Pitzer to play for SCIAC title 

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - Both top-seeded Cal Lutheran and No. 2 Pomona-Pitzer won their respective matches to move on to the 2008 SCIAC Tournament Championship game. No. 5 Redlands defeated No. 7 La Verne 13-5 before the Leopards pulled off the first upset of the event with a 10-9 victory over No. 6 Whittier.

In the first semifinal Pomona-Pitzer reeled off six straight goals to open the game and lead 6-1 at halftime. The Athenas never pulled any closer the rest of the way and fell by a 10-5 margin to the Sagehens.

PP's Tamara Perea scored a game-high four goals while teammate Naneh Apkarian added a hat trick. Goalkeeper Elena Peifer made six saves in the victory.

CMS' Sarah Assaad scored a pair of goals to lead her team. Abigail Woodruff made four saves in goal.

The Sagehens were awaiting the winner of CLU and OXY in the following semifinal match-up as the host Regals saw action for the first time in its host tournament.

Cal Lutheran's Joy Cyprian scored her first of a game-high four goals just over three minutes into the game to give the Regals a 2-0 lead.

Occidental parlayed its momentum from yesterday's victory scoring three unanswered goals to take a 3-2 lead early in the second period. However the Regals replied in kind with three straight scores including a pair from Lauren Pond to take a 5-3 halftime lead.

CLU would extend its lead to two goals three more times with the Tigers answering twice. Occidental's Sara Boehler scored her team-high third goal of the game with 5:22 left in regulation.

However neither team scored the remainder of the game as Cal Lutheran advances to the finals, 9-8 over Occidental.

Regals goalkeeper Katie Windsor made nine saves in the win. Laura Simanonok made seven stops including a penalty shot save to keep the Tigers within one late in the game.

Saturday's action opened with Redlands and La Verne tangling up in the first of three round robin contests featuring these two squads and Whittier.

UR's Sam Greenawalt completed her second hat trick in as many tournament games with 1:20 left in the second quarter to give the Bulldogs a three-goal lead. She would go on to score five in the contest and has eight in two tournament games.

La Verne's Jen Aguilar and Laura Larsen scored a pair each but the offense sputtered in the second half scoring just once.

Redlands junior Claire Quinn added three goals while teammate Jennifer Caron scored twice. The goalkeeping duo of Lauren Ellsworth and Whitney Schieler combined for 10 saves in the win.

La Verne wrapped up its tournament schedule with Saturday's tightly contested finale against Whittier. Neither team would lead by more than two at any point of the game.

The first half featured ULV's Jen Aguilar scoring all four of her team's goals while four different Poets found the back of the net providing a 4-4 halftime tie.

Poets senior Karley Perine nearly matched Aguilar's single half effort in the final two quarters netting three of her team's five second half goals.

Whittier came up just short as La Verne's Katie Watkins scored two goals in the final 3:09 of regulation to lift the Leopards to a 10-9 victory.

ULV goalkeeper Lindsay Jones matched her opening day performance of 10 saves and stopped 25 shots over the tournament.

Day Three Schedule:
#5 Redlands v. #6 Whittier - 11:45 a.m.
#3 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps v. #4 Occidental - 1:30 p.m. (Third Place)
#1 Cal Lutheran v. #2 Pomona-Pitzer - 3:15 p.m. (Championship)

Please visit http://www.clusports.com/pages/tournaments/2008WWPSCIACTournament.php for complete tournament details and results.