{"id":576903,"date":"2026-02-09T06:37:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T06:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/576903\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T06:37:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T06:37:18","slug":"no-19-water-polo-upended-on-day-two-at-asu-invitational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/576903\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 19 Water Polo Upended on Day Two at ASU Invitational"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEMPE, Ariz.<\/strong> \u2013 In its only foray out of the state of California during the 2026 season, No. 19-ranked San Diego State water polo was stopped twice on Sunday to finish the ASU Invitational with a 2-2 record. In the morning, the Aztecs were downed 15-10 by No. 6 Arizona State and then tripped up 14-13 in the afternoon by No. 18 Marist.<\/p>\n

No. 6 Arizona State 15, No. 19 San Diego State 10<\/strong>
With Arizona State outscoring the Aztecs 8-2, the second quarter proved decisive in a 15-10 loss for San Diego State in its opening Sunday game at Mona Plummer Aquatic Center.<\/p>\n

With a pair of hat tricks, Sydney Gish<\/a> and Poppy Phillips<\/a> were San Diego State\u2019s top scorers. Claudia Valdes<\/a> bent the net twice and Shannon Murphy<\/a> and Mimi Stoupas<\/a> contributed a goal each.<\/p>\n

Mandy Lagerlof<\/a> played the opening 16 minutes, made three saves against 11 goals allowed and took the loss. Tiaare Ahovelo<\/a> played the second half and also made three saves and surrendered four goals.<\/p>\n

The Sun Devils got the opening two goals and held the Scarlet and Black (7-5) off the scoreboard until a Valdes strike at the 4:23 mark trimmed the lead by half. ASU got it back to a two-goal differential with a score just 11 seconds later and it remained 3-1 until, with 43 second left, Gish drew San Diego State to within a goal, 3-2, which was the score as the teams headed to what ended up being the decisive second period.<\/p>\n

Arizona State scored six unanswered goals in the first seven minutes of the frame to lead 9-2. Valdes halted the run with a goal with 43 seconds to go, but ASU answered 16 seconds later to make it 10-3. Phillips scored on a penalty, with eight seconds remaining, and it looked like it would be 10-4 at the break, but a goal with one second left made it 11-4 at the half.<\/p>\n

Coming out of the intermission, the teams traded four goals in the third quarter. Murphy scored 1:01 in to make it 11-5, but the Sun Devils answered at the 3:36 mark. Phillips bent the net with 2:24 on the clock and ASU made it a 13-6 score, heading into the last period, with a goal with 1:22 to go.<\/p>\n

The fourth quarter belonged to San Diego State. ASU pushed its lead to 14-6 at 7:18, but Stoupas scored at the 6:43 mark and was followed, with 6:14 to go, by a Gish strike which made it 14-8. Arizona State scored its final goal with 5:03 to play and the final two strikes came from Gish, at 3:49, and Phillips, at 2:57, earned the pair their hat tricks.<\/p>\n

Sophie Shorter-Robinson led ASU with four tallies. In goal, Sanne Keijzer made 17 saves and got a goal.<\/p>\n

San Diego State:<\/strong> 2-2-2-4 – 10
Arizona State: <\/strong>3-8-2-2 – 15<\/p>\n

San Diego State Goals:<\/strong> Gish (3), Phillips (3), Valdes (2), Murphy (1), Stoupas (1)
Arizona State Goals:<\/strong> Shorter-Robinson (4), Thomas (3), D. Kardos (2), L. Kardos (2), Quin (2), Bouloukbachi (1), Keijzer (1)<\/p>\n

San Diego State Saves:\u00a0<\/strong>Ahovelo (3), Lagerlof (3)
Arizona State Saves: <\/strong>Keijzer (17)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

No. 18 Marist 14, No. 19 San Diego State 13<\/strong>
The Aztecs were outscored by a goal, 4-3, in the final frame and fell to No. 18 Marist, 14-13, in their final game of the event.<\/p>\n

San Diego State\u2019s offense was paced by a season-high matching four goals from Claudia Valdes<\/a>. Sydney Gish<\/a> and Mimi Stoupas<\/a> each scored three times, while Sammi Byers<\/a>, Ioanna Petiki<\/a> and Poppy Phillips<\/a> tallied on goal apiece.<\/p>\n

Mandy Lagerlof<\/a> played the first half, made a pair of saves, but surrendered eight goals. Tiaare Ahovelo<\/a> was in the cage for the second half, stopped four shots, but let six get by in taking the loss.<\/p>\n

Tied 10-10 at the start of the fourth, Marist got two goals, at the 7:00 and 6:10 marks, to forge ahead 12-10. They made it 13-10 with 4:02 to play and then 14-10 at 3:18. SDSU began its comeback getting goals from Byers, with 2:15 left, and Valdes 15 seconds later. Then Petiki struck with 31 ticks on the clock to make it 14-13. Following a Marist timeout with 11 seconds left, Valdes had a crack at tying as time expired but couldn\u2019t bend the net before the final horn blew.<\/p>\n

Gish gave SDSU (7-6) a 1-0 lead at the 6:05 mark and Stoupas doubled the advantage with 4:13 left in the period, but Marist got its initial goal 18 seconds later and tied the game with 3:06 on the clock. Valdes made it 3-2 on a goal with 37 seconds to go, but the Red Foxes responded and tied the game 13 seconds before the whistle blew and the teams went to the second quarter tied 3-3.<\/p>\n

The second frame belonged to Marist, outscoring the Aztecs 5-2. Gish bent the net at 7:08 and 6:26 to forge a two-tally lead, 5-3, but the rest of the first half belonged to the Red Foxes. They scored five times before the intermission and took an 8-5 lead into the break.<\/p>\n

Marist scored the first goal coming out of halftime for a four-goal advantage, 9-5. Valdes answered with 5:35 left and was followed by Stoupas, at 4:47, trimming the lead to 9-7. The Red Foxes got a goal back at 4:28, but SDSU then ripped off three goals in the final 4:09 to send the game to the final quarter knotted up at 10 apiece. Valdes scored on a penalty at 4:09 and Stoupas got the Scarlet and Black within a goal, 10-9, at 3:29. The final tally of the period went to Phillips, with five ticks on the clock, and it was 10-10 after 24 minutes.<\/p>\n

Samantha Bentley and Jolanta Szentpali led the Marist attack with a hat trick each. Inez Sanchez played the entire game making 10 saves against 13 goals allowed for the win.<\/p>\n

Marist:\u00a0<\/strong>3-5-2-4 – 14
San Diego State:<\/strong> 3-2-5-3 – 13<\/p>\n

Marist Goals:<\/strong> Bentley (3), Szentpali (3), McCarroll (2), De Beer (1), Kiss (1), Mullane (1), Naegle (1), Peterson (1), Radaelli (1)
San Diego State Goals:<\/strong> Valdes (4), Gish (3), Stoupas (3), Byers (1), Petiki (1), Philips (1)<\/p>\n

Marist Saves:\u00a0<\/strong>Sanchez (10)
San Diego State Saves: <\/strong>Ahovelo (4), Lagerlof (2)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEMPE, Ariz. \u2013 In its only foray out of the state of California during the 2026 season, No.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":576904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,103418,1582,276,3549,3890,134583,13875,2247,134585,134586,7264,10055,134584,18257,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-576903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-aztecs","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-state","tag-san-diego-state-athletics","tag-san-diego-state-aztecs","tag-san-diego-state-university","tag-san-diego-state-university-athletics","tag-san-diego-state-university-aztecs","tag-sandiego","tag-sdsu","tag-sdsu-athletics","tag-sdsu-aztecs","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116039296190445672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}