Broncos defeat No. 7 Lions 9-6

By Chris Furnari

When Keith Wilbur faced Loyola Marymount for the first time as the Broncos' head men's water polo coach in 2002, he had no idea what to expect.

The inexperience led to a crushing 20-1 defeat, something that Wilbur still remembers.

Fast forward to the 2006 season, and the Broncos have finally settled the score, as they defeated the No. 7 Lions 9-6 last Saturday.

The Broncos jumped out to an early 5-2 lead at the half, and played outstanding defense for the remainder of the game to solidify the win.

The win featured contributions from the usual cast: sophomore Jack Wall (three goals), freshman Liam Farrell (two goals) and senior goaltender Robert Callahan.

"Rob had an unbelievable game in the cage," said Wilbur. "Rob came up huge late in the game and sealed it for us."

Wilbur has since nominated Callahan for the Western Water Polo Association athlete of the week because of his outstanding efforts not only against Loyola Marymount, but throughout the entire season.

"The win was the culmination of four years of water polo," said Callahan. "It's a great reward for working my butt off and it feels awesome."

With the win, the Broncos improve to 11-9 overall despite losing their first eight matches. The team is also 9-1 in WWPA play.

The win was especially important because the Broncos only have one other victory over a ranked team, which occurred last season against the University of the Pacific.

"We beat tenth ranked UOP last year at home which can throw things off because we don't have a regulation size pool," said Wilbur.

Wilbur, who is calling this win his biggest of his career at Santa Clara, had mixed feelings about the Bronco victory.

"We were excited, but we didn't celebrate too much," said Wilbur. "We still know that we may face LMU again, and they will be gunning for us."

For now, the Broncos have every reason to celebrate, as LMU has won the WWPA conference championship and made the NCAA tournament each of the past four years.

The win has many of the Broncos also talking about the possibility of an NCAA tournament berth.

"If we play like we did this weekend for the rest of the season, we could win our conference and make it to the NCAAs," said Callahan.

Still, the Broncos are taking it one step at a time, as the upcoming weekend will be a huge test when they face U.C. Davis, Air Force and San Diego at the Aggie Shootout. Each of the three games are influential in the conference standings, but none bigger than their match against Air Force.

"We need to beat Air Force," said Wilbur. "We are ranked just ahead of them in conference standings and a loss would negate the big win we just had."

Contact Chris Furnari at (408) 551-1918 or cfurnari@scu.edu.