BOX SCORE
 
LOS ANGELES – The Lions opened the game with eight unanswered first quarter goals on their way to a 20-10 win in their penultimate regular season game. LMU men's water polo (13-10, 5-2 GCC) doubled up Occidental (9-17, 1-11), 20-10 at Burns Aquatics Center.

Blazo Mitrovic helped set the tone early, scoring two goals in the first two minutes, with Daniel Roth adding a third before the six-minute mark of the first quarter. Following an Occidental timeout call, Alexandros Athymaritis and David Carrasco traded off scorring back-to-back goals each to extend LMU's lead to 7-0. Christian Huhn added an eighth goal of the period with 2:24 showing on the clock. The Tigers scored in the final minute of the quarter, to make it an 8-1 game.
 
LMU jumped out quickly to open the second quarter as well. Matthew Knoedler and Ford Witman scored less than a minute apart from each other to give the Lions a 10-1 advantage early in the second quarter. Occidental scored the final two goals on the half to make it a 10-3 game at the break.
 
The first three goals of the second gave went in favor of the home team and gave LMU their first double digit lead of the day. Roth, Mitrovic, and Carrasco all added to the lead with goals in the early minutes of the quarter. Following two goals from the Tigers, Knoedler and Luke Chandler went back-to-back to give LMU the 16-5 advantage with 25 seconds remaining in the third period. Occidental scored on their final possession of the third to make it a 16-6 game heading into the final eight minutes.
 
Knoedler matched his season-high third goal of the game to open the final period, before Occidental rattled off three unanswered. Rylan Russell and Luke Chandler scored on consecutive possessions to build the lead back up to double digits, 19-9, with 1:41 on the clock. In the closing minutes, the Tigers scored to cut it to single digits, but Jack Dunbar added one final goal late to give LMU a season-best 20 goals.
 
The regular season will end with one final non-conference home game. The Lions will host Long Beach State on Thursday afternoon for a 3 p.m. match at Burns.
 
The WWPA Championships are scheduled for Nov. 22-24 from Riverside California. LMU has earned the three-seed in the conference tournament with their play this season.