Water polo gets costly win
Sutter suffers knee injury in UCLA's 11-9 win at UCSD
By Esther Hui
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Sunday's UC San Diego vs. UCLA men's water polo match was touted the Halloween Bash, and for the second year in a row it drew a crowd of 1,000 screaming Tritons, including the UCSD band.
It was not such a festive occasion for UCLA, however, which prevailed 11-9 in the last minutes of the game. The Bruins lost hole man Mark Sutter to a knee injury in the second quarter.
Sutter presumably tore the meniscus in his right knee, an injury he suffered last spring in his left knee. The exact injury will not be known until later today. If it is a torn meniscus, Sutter will be sidelined for the rest of the season.
The loss of Sutter comes at a frustrating time for the Bruins (13-8 overall, 2-5 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation). UCLA has only two weeks until the conference tournament, and the Bruins lost starter Jim Toring to a broken leg two weeks ago.
"We're facing quite a lot of adversity," UCLA head coach Guy Baker said. "First we lost Jim and now Mark. But the team is hanging in there."
The Bruins played a much more spirited game than they had against Stanford Saturday, fighting back from a 5-2 deficit at the time of Sutter's withdrawal to tie the game 5-5 at half time. With the score tied 9-9 and with 3:22 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Bruin Tommy Wong scored a two-point goal to bring the final score to 11-9.
High scorers for the Bruins were Corbin Graham and Luther Weidner with three goals apiece.
"The team is really coming through now," Baker said. "But the one thing on our mind right now is Mark."