The ASU water polo team got off on the wrong foot Thursday when it lost to the University of California Irvine, 13-12, in the first round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships.
While the Sun Devils led for most of the game, a huge six-goal fourth quarter by UCI propelled the Anteaters to the close victory.
"I'm not happy at all about the way we played in that fourth quarter," ASU coach Todd Clapper said. "We made a lot of mistakes. We have to make up for it."
The Sun Devils and Anteaters went back and forth throughout the first half with ASU leading 3-2 after the first quarter and 7-6 at halftime.
The Sun Devils looked as though they were going to pull away in the third quarter when they built a four-goal lead with 1:57 left in the period and were ahead 10-7 at the start of the final period.
But the fourth quarter completely belonged to the Anteaters as they outscored the Sun Devils 6-2 in the period.
The Anteaters tied the game at 10 with 4:45 remaining in the game before a goal by freshman center Kelly Phelps put the ASU back up by one.
UCI then scored three consecutive goals to take a 13-11 lead.
The Sun Devils cut the Anteaters' lead to 13-12 with 1:25 remaining in the game, but could not find the back of the net one more time to force overtime.
"We were being relaxed on offense instead of actually being explosive," Clapper said. "[UCI] came out, they swung the momentum back, they got a couple steals, [and] we threw the ball to them a couple times. They came out, got some counterattack opportunities on us and took control of the game.
"It came down to the fact that toward the end of the game, we started scrambling because of that."
ASU was led on offense by Phelps, who scored three goals in the contest.
Freshman attacker Bonnie Chapman, senior attacker Katie Hedley, junior center Katie Lawlor and freshman center Amanda Stepp also added two goals each.
Junior goalkeeper Caylinn Wallace also chipped in 11 saves for ASU.
The Sun Devils will look to rebound when they take on the winner of Friday's game between UC Santa Barbara and University of Pacific on Saturday at 9 a.m.
"We're not going to come in and give our seniors a crappy exit," Clapper said. "The only way we can make up for what we did here is to win two games. We can't leave the tournament with a sour taste in our mouths."
Reach the reporter at: gina.mizell@asu.edu.
