The University of Redlands women's water polo team celebrated Senior Day with an exciting 9-7 win over the Cal Lutheran University Regals at the beautiful Thompson Aquatic Center on Wednesday afternoon. With the score tied at six apiece to start the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs stepped up defensively while closing out the game on a 3-1 scoring run to secure the hard-fought victory.
After earning the first two leads of the game at 1-0 with a goal by senior utility player Taylor Christie (Anaheim, CA) and again at 2-1 off of the hand of senior attack player Annie Kinney (Newport Beach, CA), the Bulldogs were forced to play catch-up on three occasions. Trailing 2-3, Redlands looked to Kinney to fire one past the Regal goalkeeper with 5:59 remaining in the second stanza. The teams traded scores again, with sophomore utility player Stefanie Goldbach (Huntington Beach, CA) evening the count for the Maroon and Gray at 4-4 late in the period.
Redlands regained the lead about a minute into the third quarter, when freshman utility player Rachel Nelson (San Juan Capistrano, CA) notched her first goal of the game.
But the Regals responded with a pair of goals to force another mini-comeback by the Bulldogs. Kinney provided the equalizer score to make it 6-6 with 2:43 left on the third-period clock.
With the score tied for the sixth time, the Maroon and Gray took its game to the next level by firing off three-consecutive goals during the next seven minutes. Kinney capped off a four-goal performance, before Nelson notched a hat trick with a pair of netters late in the game.
Although Cal Lutheran managed a last-second score, the 9-7 victory belonged to the Bulldogs.
Freshman goalkeepers Allison Totzke (San Bernardino, CA) and Katelyn Jenkins (Bellevue, WA) shared time in the Redlands cage. No statistics were available at the time of posting.
Redlands (6-20, 2-4 SCIAC) heads to top-ranked USC on Saturday, April 9, for a non-conference match at 2:30 p.m.
