Dec. 3, 2006

By Matt Burke

Special To CSTV.com

LOS ANGELES - Not a good weekend for USC.

While the Rose Bowl served as the football team's heartbreak hotel Saturday, another potential national championship trophy for USC fell by the wayside at Loyola Marymount University Sunday.

In the most improbable of finishes, Jeff Tyrrell's prayer of shot with no time remaining somehow made its way to the back of the net and gave Cal one of the more dramatic finishes to a national championship game in the history of NCAA.

Tyrrell's miracle gave the Golden Bears a 7-6 victory and the school's 12th Division I Water Polo title, more than any other DI school.

"Wow. That's all I can say," said waterlogged Cal head coach Kirk Everist, still dripping from his impromptu jump into the Burns Recreation Center pool following Tyrrell's goal. "I haven't seen a game quite like this. At least not with this much riding on it. That last goal was the hand of god right there. Somehow it got tipped in."

It looked for certain that the physical contest between the two rivals was surely headed for overtime when USC showed its own flair for the dramatic.

Down 6-4 early in the fourth period, the Trojans comeback culminated when Thomas Hale found the right corner of the net with just 1.78 seconds left. A celebration by USC ensued and they obviously weren't expecting any type of Golden Bear victory dance. Certainly not in regulation.

"It was a game decided by who had the ball last," said frustrated USC head coach Jovan Vavic. "Sometimes the ball just doesn't bounce your way."

What was even more troubling for the Trojans was the fantastic way they opened the contest.
Behind goals from Juan Delgadillo (2), Gabor Sarusi and Tommy Corcoran, USC built a 4-2 halftime lead and looked as though they had solved the Golden Bears offensive attack with a stifling defense.

But the third period proved to be all Cal.

Marty Matthies got the Golden Bears going when his beautiful, one-timing lob shot found it's way over the head of USC goalie Adam Shilling.

Minutes later, Cal's Spencer Warden all but spanked the ball into the net at the 2:18 mark to tie the game at four.

Golden Bear goalie Mark Sheredy, who had a career day in net, then sent a long outlet pass that nearly went the length of the pool. The gorgeous pass found its way into the sure hands of Cal's John Mann. On the fast break, Mann pushed the ball ahead and fired the ball right past the out-stretched arms of Shilling as the momentum clearly shifted in favor of the Golden Bears heading into the fourth.

"We didn't keep playing defense in the second half and it really hurt us at the end of the game," Vavic explained. "They just came out firing in the third quarter."

The most storied program in NCAA water polo, Cal won its first national title since 1992.

"These guys had already restored the tradition of Cal water polo before this game," said Everist, who was part of several Cal championship squads as a player. "But this is theirs. Now these guys get to walk around with a ring on their finger. They now have their own legacy that will live on."