Anteaters deliver second straight surprise, beat Cal

BERKELEY — UC Irvine men’s water polo coach Marc Hunt didn’t need to deliver a memorable speech or show his players a motivating film before this weekend.

He was secure in his belief that the Anteaters were confident they were plenty capable of reaching the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament title game. Their fifth seed hardly wavered that belief. Hunt knew UCI, which includes fifth-year seniors Tim Hutten, Colin Mello, Cole Bitter, Andrew Dunn and Matt Garcia, could come through.

The Anteaters didn’t let their coach down and made some history Saturday. They delivered their second “upset” in as many days, taking out top-seeded Cal, 13-12, in a semifinal of the MPSF Tournament in the Bears’ pool.

UCI will play in the MPSF Tournament championship for the first time in its history today at 4 p.m. against top-ranked USC, which was seeded second in the tournament. The Trojans defeated Stanford, coached by former Corona del Mar coach John Vargas, 10-6, in the other semifinal.

Hunt doesn’t want the Anteaters’ season to end today. UC Irvine needs a win to earn a berth into the NCAA Tournament.

“When you beat Cal and UCLA in two days, that’s not an easy thing to do,” Hunt said. “But there is more work to do.”

UCI (14-10) defeated No. 4-seeded UCLA, 10-9, in sudden-death overtime Friday.

Early against Cal (25-4), it seemed as if the Anteaters were about to point to that Bruins’ win as the highlight of their season.

“There are some incredibly determined men that wanted to make this happen,” Hunt said. “We were down 4-1 after the first quarter. It almost looked like the wheels were falling off.”

The Anteaters were able to cut the MPSF and NCAA defending champions’ lead to 7-5 at the half, and then outscored the Bears, 5-1 in the third quarter.

With the scored tied, 12-12, UCI junior Cole Bielskis scored the game-winning goal with 1:49 left. Hutten scored a game-high five goals.

Hunt was confident his team could do well in the MPSF Tournament because his key players were healthy. Hutten suffered a broken finger on his left non-shooting hand last month, near the same time when Mello had a thumb injury on his shooting hand.

“I have a very talented group of young men,” Hunt said. “There are five fifth-year seniors coming into this tournament and they were overlooked by USC, Cal, Stanford. None of those schools recruited these guys.”

Hunt also credited former long-time coach Ted Newland with UCI’s accomplishment.

For the box score of this game, see College Roundup on Page A20.

— From staff reports