UC Irvine Travels to USC Saturday

Nov. 17, 2009

`EATERS TRAVEL TO TOP-RANKED USC: Coach Marc Hunt's UC Irvine men's water polo team (15-10 overall, 3-4 MPSF) closes out regular-season play Saturday (Nov. 21) at USC.

The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation game has a 12 noon start at McDonald's Swim Stadium.

UCI is in sixth place in the MPSF entering the week. The MPSF Tournament is at USC Nov. 27-29.

UCI SPLITS MPSF GAMES: UCI won on the road at UC Santa Barbara, 9-7, Saturday and lost a 15-14, five-overtime game to Pepperdine at home Sunday in MPSF action last weekend.

Senior Cole Bielskis scored three goals and junior Brandon Johnson added two in the victory at UCSB.

In the loss to Pepperdine, Brandon Johnson led the `Eaters with four goals. Kyle Baxter scored three with Tom Kruip, Griffin Lerman and Greg Enloe adding two apiece. Junior goalie Matt Johnson recorded 15 saves.

SCORING LEADERS: Cole Bielskis leads the team in scoring with 44 goals and he ranks seventh in the MPSF with a 1.76 scoring average.

Tom Kruip and Brandon Johnson have 41 goals each and rank 10th in the MPSF with an average of 1.64 goals per game.

Greg Enloe has 30 goals, James Frank 23 and Kyle Kruip 19.

IN GOAL: Junior Matt Johnson has started 22 games and has 162 saves. Senior Erik Evered has played in seven games with three starts and has recorded 42 stops.