STANFORD, Calif. – Senior Bret Bonanni scored four goals to lead the No. 5 Stanford men’s water polo team to a 10-8 victory over No. 6 UC Santa Barbara Saturday evening at Avery Aquatic Center.
The Cardinal (15-6, 1-3 MPSF) erased an early 2-0 deficit with four-straight scores to take a 4-2 lead in the second quarter.
Bonanni struck first for the Cardinal, finding the back of the cage at the 5:13 mark of the first quarter. He then tied it up 2:14 later as goalie Drew Holland made a diving stop from two meters out and then alertly fired a long pass to the senior, who put it in the back of the cage on the fastbreak score.
Redshirt junior Adam Abdulhamid followed with a pair of goals of his own to put Stanford up 4-2.
UCSB snapped the Cardinal’s four-goal run with a pair of scorers in the final minutes of the second quarter, but Bonanni capped the half with his third goal of the game with 14 seconds remaining in the period.
Stanford scored five of the first six goals of the second half to extend its lead. Sophomore Cody Smith netted a pair of scores to give Stanford a 7-5 edge with six minutes left in the contest.
The Cardinal led by as many as four goals in the second half, using goals from Abdulhamid and Jackson Kimbell to take a 9-5 lead over the Gauchos (13-8, 2-4 MPSF) with 2:25 to play.
Bonanni punched in his fourth score of the contest to cap Stanford’s scoring, en route to the Cardinal’s 10-8 victory.
Senior Drew Holland tied his season high with 13 saves in the cage for the Cardinal.
With four goals against UCSB, Bonanni now has 328 for his career and is four shy of tying Tony Azevedo’s (2001-04) Stanford and MPSF scoring record of 332 goals.
Stanford will be back in action tomorrow as the Cardinal will travel to San Jose to face San Jose State at noon.