Krystal Sung scored a hat-trick in the second half to mark her first three goals of the season and finished with four points in a SCIAC victory over Caltech.

Posted: Mar 09, 2019

CMS Women's Water Polo Rolls to 13-6 Win Over Caltech

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Women's water polo team used a vast array of goal scorers and a hat-trick from Krystal Sung to roll past Caltech 13-6 and clinch its first SCIAC victory of the 2019 season.

The Athenas improve to 3-8 overall and 1-1 in the SCIAC and Caltech falls to 1-7 overall and 0-3 in conference play. CMS entered halftime with a 6-3 edge with all six goals coming from six different Athenas during the first half of play. Chandlyr Denaro opened the scoring with her 10th goal of the season and first of the game for the Athenas at 6:33 of the first quarter off an assist from Amelia Ayala.

Brittany Percin tied the game up at 5:07 with an unassisted goal for Caltech and Gemma Takahashi gave the Beavers their first lead of the game with a goal at 3:24. The Athenas responded a little over one minute later when Aracelia Aldrete poured a shot into the back of the net for her first goal of the game and seventh goal of the season, tying the game 2-2.

One minute and three seconds later, Alex Szymczak scored on the powerplay to give the Athenas their second lead of the game of 3-2. It marked Szymczak's only goal of the game and team-leading 11th goal of the season. The closing 1:12 of the first quarter featured one exclusion but not much other action in the pool and the Athenas held a one-goal lead through the first eight minutes of play.

In the second quarter, the Athenas opened with shots from Szymczak and Addi Duvall but those were just slightly off target and then Amelia Ayala scored her first of two goals in the game at the 4:58 mark of the second quarter with an assist from Emma Choy giving CMS a 4-2 lead.

Caltech answered back quickly with a tally just 13 seconds later by Samantha D'Costa cutting the Athenas lead to 4-3 with 4:45 left in the second frame.

Then the Athenas grabbed back their two-goal lead 5-3 with a goal at 4:26 from Haley Gibbs on an assist by Kaitlyn Eng. Sung then rang a shot off the post and Maddy Menard found the back of the net not much later with an assist from Ayla Huhn extending the lead to 6-3 at halftime.

Caltech opened the second half with a win on the spring by Takahashi and just over 20 seconds later a goal by Percin to mark her second and final goal of the game cutting the CMS lead to 6-4. From there, the Athenas would go on a 7-2 run to close out the game led by three goals from Sung. The first goal for Sung came at the 3:07 mark of the third quarter stretching the advantage to 7-4.

Menard added another goal at 2:09 in the third frame off an assist from Sung and Emily McElroy tallied her only goal of the day at the 1:43 mark of the third quarter with help from Ayala.

Following a goal by Yuying Lin of Caltech with 31 seconds left in the third, the Athenas held a 9-5 lead through three quarters. Gibbs got CMS off on the right foot in the fourth and final frame with her second goal of the game and of the season at 6:56 putting the Athenas up 10-5.

Michelle Zhao netted a power play goal to cut the CMS lead to 10-6 but three unanswered goals by the Athenas would close out a CMS victory. Ayala netted one of those three and Sung completed her hat-trick with two more goals including the feat clincher at 1:14 in the fourth quarter.

In total, the Athenas had eight different players score goals with Sung pacing the field with three goals and one assist. Menard scored twice and dished out two assists, and Ayala scored twice and finished with two assists as well. Ruth Efe started in net for the Athenas and at halftime had surrendered four of the six goals scored by Caltech. Veronica Show was substituted into the net at halftime and allowed the final two goals by the Beavers.

CMS Women's water polo is back in action on Mar. 12 at Redlands at 7 p.m. The Athenas return to Axelrood Pool on Mar. 14 as they host Whittier at 7 p.m.