STANFORD, Calif. – Every time No. 1 USC tied the game in the fourth quarter, Stanford’s BJ Churnside had an answer. The junior driver from Orange, Calif. scored three of his four goals in the game’s final five minutes, breaking deadlocks at 8-8, 9-9 and finally 10-10 to propel the No. 3 Stanford men’s water polo team to an 11-10 victory over the Trojans at Avery Aquatic Center on Saturday morning.
The win was the Cardinal’s second in a row against the nation’s top-ranked team after defeating then-No. 1 UCLA at the SoCal Tournament last Sunday (7-6). It moved Stanford to 16-2 overall and 2-0 in MPSF action and was its second down-to-the-wire victory over the Trojans in as many seasons. In Los Angeles last Nov. 16, the then-No. 4 Cardinal topped then-No. 2 USC, 17-16, in overtime.
The Trojans never led in this one, but tied the game on five occasions – twice in the first quarter and three times in the fourth. With 0:59 remaining in the third, Bret Bonanni (science, technology and society major) converted a penalty to match Stanford’s largest lead of the morning, 8-5. But Rex Butler scored for USC (16-3, 2-1 MPSF) at the buzzer and then Nick Bell opened up the fourth with scores at 6:30 and 5:35 to bring the Trojans back even, 8-8, for the first time since early in the second quarter.
“I kept telling our team that it was still our game,” Stanford head coach John Vargas said. “Our game plan had been successful and we were going to stick to it. We made a couple of little corrections, but we were good to go.”
“We knew it was a big game coming in and that they weren’t going to go down without a fight,” Churnside added. “They started to chip away at us a bit so it was really even in the fourth, but we … expected a little adversity to hit. We wanted to stay positive and not be phased by it and that’s what we did.”
With the game in the balance, that’s when Churnside (electrical engineering major) went to work. Conner Cleary (history and the law major) earned an ejection of USC’s Mihajlo Milicevic to give the Cardinal a 6-on-5 opportunity. Churnside gathered the ball in the middle of the pool, slid to his right to change the angle on McQuin Baron and deposited his shot to the right of the Trojans’ 6-foot-9 goalkeeper with 5:00 left.
Bell scooted one right around the near post for USC with 3:11 to go and again tie the game, 9-9. With 2:25 on the clock, Churnside received a pass from Bonanni, took a hit from the right, one from the left and then lobbed his shot into the top right corner of the cage. The off-speed attempt froze Baron and inched Stanford out in front, 10-9.
Rex Butler answered from distance with 1:13 remaining to set the stage for Churnside one more time. The Cardinal’s eighth man-up chance gave the junior some room from the center spot. Some shot fakes and a slide of his body gave Churnside a lane and his game-winning rocket when low and left past Baron with 0:41 on the clock.
“If you look back to the goals, they were on 6-on-5 and there was so much that went into it other than my shot at the end,” Churnside said of his impressive fourth quarter. “Whether it was a pass, a good drive or good ball positioning, it was the entire team coming together and it just happened to be my shot.”
Grant Stein made a last-ditch effort for USC, but the left-handed shot pounded off the crossbar with 0:10 left, allowing Stanford to secure win.
While Churnside did his damage late, Adam Abdulhamid (electrical engineering major) got the Cardinal off on the right foot in the early going. Alex Bowen (product design major) scored Stanford’s first at 6:40 in the opening period, but then three of the team’s next four goals would be put home by the redshirt sophomore. Abdulhamid’s run at 1:44 in the first and 6:54 and 3:35 in the second was only broken up by Bonanni’s first of the game at 4:23 in the second quarter.
Abdulhamid’s third and final goal of the morning gave Stanford a 5-2 edge, only matched by the later 8-5 lead which precipitated the back-and-fourth final frame.
Drew Holland loomed large yet again for the Cardinal in the cage. The sophomore made a career-high 20 saves, eclipsing the 17 he had in the home opener against UC Irvine two weeks ago, and took advantage of a Stanford defensive effort that continuously challenged the Trojans’ weapons and funneled shots into in the waiting arms of Holland.
“Drew is such a mature athlete in and out of the water,” Vargas commented. “You know that he’s athletic and does a great job, but how he handles himself in the goal and how he talks to his teammates. He’s one of the best I’ve ever had. Stanford is known for great goalies and Drew is next in line.”
He stopped Rex Butler early in the second, which led to Abdulhamid’s second goal at 6:54 and later that period stopped two man-up chances for USC with under two minutes until the break, preserving what was then a three-goal Stanford lead.
“We worked on funneling in practice,” Churnside said. “Drew has been doing a much better job this year of telling us what he wants on defense – how to funnel and exactly where he wants shots coming from. That just let us play our defense and we let Drew do his thing.”
The Cardinal has a quick turnaround, as it heads south for another MPSF contest on Sunday afternoon, taking on No. 8 UC Santa Barbara at noon.