Box Score
LA MIRADA, Calif. — Biola Women's Water Polo made a Splash! in its first home contest on Friday giving a big fight to top NCAA Division I opponent UC Santa Barbara. The Eagles held a lead in the first half, before the Gauchos took control and worked their way to a 13-7 win.

"It was good to see the girls finally getting to see what a D1 team looks like," said Head Coach Sarah Orozco. "Some of our girls were craving that. We see we've got some work to do, but I think we did really well."

Samantha Rainey sparkled in the goal for BU, recording 13 saves in three periods of work before handing the keys over to Damaris Kientz.

"Both of our goalies have been doing amazing," said Orozco. "Our defense have gotten a little better, but our goalies, for sure, saved this game for us."

The Eagles held UCSB just under its season average in goal scoring and matched its own minimum goal scoring for the first weekend. The Eagles scored first in this one and also held leads at 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2, before UCSB used a four-goal stretch to take the lead for the first time and begin to build margin.

A pair of five-meter penalties and converted penalty shots from UCSB's Nina Munson helped them turn the tide as the Gauchos took control. Munson would turn out to be one of the game's leading scorers with three tallies. She and teammate Leigh Lyter did the heavy lifting for UCSB combining for more than half of the team's scoring (7 goals).

Biola would never get back within three goals as the game progressed, but managed to continue to find opportunities on their offensive end to avoid going stagnant. Kourtney Pyle and Maria Roldan Gonzalez found the twine from the perimeter, combining for four of BU's seven scores.

Veralie Naranjo added another pair to retake the team lead in scoring, but unfortunately for the Eagles both Naranjo and Pyle were held out for a large chunk of the fourth quarter due to maxing out their exclusion allotment.

"We will need to adjust to the refs," said Orozco. "With the whole team being new and still learning each other we see we need to adjust to the refs at the beginning of the game to see what they're calling and avoid doing that."

Biola's seven goals came on 22 shots. The Eagles began the game on fire, making three of their first four attempts from the field but then the pair of Gaucho goalies became more effective.

UCSB took advantage of an aggressive set of drivers against Biola, picking up four penalty fouls in the course of the game. A noted area of improvement for Orozco and the team.

"Today's performance gives me confidence for our conference season," said Orozco. "We see where we could size up against the East Coast teams in our conference by looking at UCSB's wins against East Coast teams last week."

The Eagles drop to 1-2 following the loss. The Gauchos are now 5-2 on the young season. Both teams move onto the CBU Mini Tournament on Saturday. The Eagles face UCSD at 9:15 a.m. and Redlands later in the day.