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ASU suffers from a Defensive collapse in frustrating fashion

TEMPE – On senior day Arizona State water polo honored its seniors, goalie Marie Rudasics and utility Molly Ostrowski before the game, but in the pool ASU put up a dishonorable performance especially on defense.

“Our defense was nonexistent,” ASU head coach Petra Pardi said. “You can’t win games like that.”

No. 7 Arizona State (17-6, 1-3 MPSF) had a consistent subpar defensive day in a 13-12 loss to No. 18 San José State (12-10, 1-3 MPSF). The defense fouled frequently which proved to be costly in a close game.

The Sun Devils fouled 15 times compared to the Spartans eight. SJSU took advantage and scored six times on penalties compared to ASU’s four.

“We couldn’t foul without getting turned on the perimeter,” Pardi said. “It was a lack of focus and lack of effort today.”

Junior attacker Millie Quin and freshman attacker Hannah McClaskey had three exclusion fouls, each tying career highs. SJSU scored on two of McClaskey’s fouls and one on Quin’s. Freshman Attacker Ani Pamp had two exclusions with the Spartans capitalizing on one.

ASU committed two penalties that San José capitalized on with two goals. Junior center Sophie Shorter-Robinson and sophomore attacker Jasmijn Dikmans had the costly penalty fouls.

Arizona State got beat in the middle half of the game. The Sun Devils had 11 of their 15 fouls in the second and third periods and were outscored 7-4.

Coming out of the half the Sun Devils scored two goals in 41 seconds to tie the game but the momentum stopped there. Taking that stretch out ASU was beaten 7-2 in the middle 16 minutes.

Four SJSU players scored the thirteen goals, sophomore driver Darcy Spark and sophomore 2-meter defender Rose Jensen each scored four, freshman 2-meter defender Bridget Cranley scored three and sophomore driver Jennine Osorio scored two.

“It was 50% of the time the pressure on the ball was good,” Pardi said. “The other 50% of the time we got turned on the perimeter.”

ASU had two field blocks today which is their season average. ASU had five steals, slightly below its average, with three from Quin. She has had 14 steals in the last four games.

Freshman goalie Keri Glad played well as she saved 40% of the SJSU shots. Rudasics started in net and let up one goal on one shot. ASU still does not have junior goalie Sanne Keijzer who has not played since the Triton invitational in early February.

Offensively, ASU scored its fewest goals in a game with 12, since Feb. 21 where they lost to the current ranked no. 6 Long Beach State University 19-8. The offense shot into the San Jose State blocks often.

“There’s a lot of time in practice we spend on faking blockers out and shooting behind the blocks,” Pardi said.

Freshman attacker Itziar Almeda scored a team leading five goals on the day and was able to shoot behind the blocks. It was Almeda’s career high in goals scored. Quin had two goals, one less than her average.

Redshirt junior attacker Molly Glad and Pamp each had a pair of goals in the match. Pamp’s goals game late in the match showing that the freshman could emerge next year for ASU.

Looking ahead, Arizona State plays Cal and USC who are both top five ranked teams nationally, before heading into the MPSF conference tournament that has six of the top ten overall teams.

“How we focus on having next play mentalities is 100% in our control,” Pardi said. “The execution of that 100% of the time is what we need to grow in.”

ASU did not have the level of next play mentality. Uncharacteristically, Pardi had voiced her displeasure with a couple of the referee’s calls.

In a game ASU should have easily won, the team did not look like themselves and lacked what it needed to go over the edge.

“I’m very angry,” Pardi said. “We play much better water polo than this.”