Former Villa Park goalie Matt Rapacz, far left, made 11 saves and six former county players scored one goal apiece to help the UCLA men’s water polo team earn an automatic berth to the NCAA championships with an 10-9 victory against top-ranked and visiting USC in the MPSF tournament final Sunday.

UCLA won on a goal 54 seconds into sudden-death overtime by Cristiano Mirarchi, a sophomore who has played for the Italian national team.

The Bruins also defeated Pepperdine (Friday) and Cal (Saturday) en route to the MPSF tournament title, which sends them to the NCAA tournament this weekend at Cal.

The Bruins got goals from Paul Reynolds (Foothill), above right, in the first overtime, Daniel Lenhart (Esperanza), Lucas Reynolds (Corona del Mar), Josh Samuels (Villa Park), Alex Wherry (Mater Dei) and Griffin White (El Toro).

In the semifinals Saturday, Reynolds scored the winning goal in overtime to lift UCLA past Cal, 7-6. Foothill product Paul Pickell also scored in the match.

Three-time defending NCAA champion USC received an at-large selection to the NCAA tournament. Princeton and UC San Diego also qualified.

Photos courtesy of UCLA

More boys water polo news from the OCVarsity blog:

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.