RIVERSIDE, Calif. – An injury-riddled Fresno Pacific men's water polo team fell twice on the final day of the Lancer Invitational on Saturday to nationally-ranked opponents. The Sunbirds dropped the opener to #16 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, 18-2, and suffered a setback to #19 Whittier, 22-14.
 
FPU has its four-game winning streak snapped with the two defeats and moves to 7-9 overall.
 
"I'm very proud of our guys and how they battled through adversity today," said head coach Bryan Suhovy. "Despite losing both of our goalies this weekend and having a freshman field player play in the cage, we continued to play really hard and compete. We learned a lot about ourselves today."
 
The Sunbirds fell behind early in the opener and couldn't overcome a 7-1 opening quarter deficit in the 18-2 setback. FPU trailed 13-1 at halftime.
 
Greg Bracamonte and Zlatko Vlasic scored a goal apiece in the loss for FPU. Freshman driver Blake Lewis, filling in for Dillon Robinson and Kevin Richey, tallied nine saves in the cage.
 
In the afternoon game, the Sunbirds trailed 4-3 early before Whittier used a 4-0 run to create some distance. Despite being down 16-9 at the intermission, the Sunbirds battled to the final whistle and only allowed six second-half goals to fall 22-14.
 
Vlasic led the Sunbirds' offense with four goals, while Daniel Seymour and David Maes tallied a hat trick each. Lewis made nine saves in the cage.
 
FPU is back in action against Concordia and Delta College next Saturday, Oct. 17.