Sept. 8, 2007

Los Angeles, CA (Sept. 8) - Playing their second opponent ranked in the nation's top-five in the last three days, the 12th-ranked Loyola Marymount men's water polo team continued to give those teams fits, pushing USC before falling 9-4 on the road on Saturday afternoon.

LMU, who played No. 3 UCLA goal-for-goal until falling 8-6 at home on Thursday, was led by freshman Tibor Forai and redshirt freshman Andrew Aki with a pair of goals. However, they could not overcome the top-ranked Trojans experienced attack to fall to 2-4 on the season.

After Shea Buckner gave USC an early 1-0 lead, Forai scored his first with 2:18 remaining on a natural goal to make it 1-1. It stayed that way until Buckner scored in the final second of the frame to make it 2-1.

Forai made the score 2-2 to start the second period on another natural goal with 3:10 left in the first half. However USC took over the game with three unanswered goals in the final three minutes, including one with just 13 seconds remaining, to go up 5-2 at the half.

Buckner, who led all scorers with four goals, scored the first goal of the second half to make it four unanswered goals go up 6-2. Aki cut the lead to 6-3 mid-way through the third period. LMU would not get any closer as USC would score the next three goals to go up 9-3 before Aki make it 9-4 with 1:14 remaining in the game.

The Lions will travel to the NorCal Invitational hosted by Cal in one week.

#1 USC 9, #12 LMU 4
?LMU 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 -- 4?
USC 2 - 3 - 2 - 2 -- 9??
GOALS: ?USC - Shea Buckner 4, Justin Rappel 2, Jordan Thompson, Nico Sardo, Garrett?Hayes.
?LMU - Tibor Forai 2, Andrew Aki 2.??
SAVES: Adam Shilling (USC) 8, Will Cherashore (USC) 1, Andy Stevens (LMU)?10.