Nov. 9, 2003

UC Santa Barbara fought hard with No. 1 USC on Sunday at UCSB's Recreation Center Pool, but game starting and game ending goals by James Shin shut the door on the Gauchos as they fell to USC 9-7. The win improves USC to 17-3 overall and 5-1 in MPSF play while the loss drops the Santa Barbara to 11-14 overall and 0-6 in the MPSF.

Shin's goal in the first quarter ignited the Trojan offense and gave them a lead that they would never relinquish. Junior Andrew Schoneberger responded with a score of his own, but a tie was as close as UCSB would get.

USC demonstrated why they are the No.1 team in the country as they used a balanced offensive attack and strong defense to stifle each run the Gauchos made. Southern Cal had six players record goals on the afternoon and goalkeeper Bozidar Damjanovic tallied eight saves to lead the Trojans to victory. Predrag Damjanov scored twice for USC as did Shin and Nick Andrejic. Thomas Hale and Gadi Hadar scored once for the Trojans and USC's leading scorer Juraj Zatovic found the back of the net once as well.

Junior Brian Alexander led Santa Barbara's offensive attack with three goals including a penalty shot at the start of the fourth quarter that brought the Gauchos within one. Other Gauchos to score were Schoneberger with two goals and freshmen Matt Tilburg and Matt Dale with one apiece.

Freshman goalkeeper Rick Wright fought hard between the posts for Santa Barbara recording nine saves and improving his saves per game average to 7.84

The Gauchos return to action next weekend with their final two MPSF matches. Saturday, November 15, UCSB takes on No. 2 Cal, and the following day, Santa Barbara plays No. 14 Pacific.

USC Scoring - Shin-2. Damjanov-2. Andrejic-2, Zatovic-1, Hale-1, Hadar-1
UCSB Scoring - Alexander-3. Schoneberger-2, Tilburg-1, Dale-1
USC Goalkeeping - Damjanovic-8 saves
UCSB Goalkeeping - Wright-9 saves