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IRVINE, Calif. -- Long Beach State built an early and never let go of it as they went on to win the 2021 Golden Coast Conference Men's Championships title with a 13-9 win over Pacific on Sunday afternoon in Irvine, Calif. The top-seed and fifth-ranked Beach earn the league's automatic bid to the upcoming National Collegiate Men's Water Polo Championships Dec. 4-5 at UCLA. 

GCC LINKS: 2021 Championships | 2021 Award Winners | 2021 Standings | 2021 Stats | 2021 Results

Garrett Zaan led Long Beach State with four goals and tournament MVP Andrej Bosanac made eight saves and finished with 19 in the two games of the tournament. Rafael Real Vergara added a goal and an assist for the Beach (22-5) as all three were named to the All-Tournament team.

Bogdan Djerkovic led Pacific (10-12) with four goals and Jeremie Cote had a goal and an assist. They were also both named to the All-Tournament team. Joining them was Nathan Puentes from UC Santa Barbara and Yahav Fire from San Jose State.

The teams traded goals to start the game and then Matt Morris and Zaan scored back-to-back goals to give the Beach a 3-1 lead. They would never trail in the game. After Matthew Hosmer cut the lead to 3-2, scored three straight to make it 6-2 with four minutes to play. The four-goal lead proved to be too much for the Tigers to overcome.

The Tigers cut the lead to a pair of goals twice, once at 8-6 on another Hosmer goal, and again at 9-7 on an Eli Lule goal with 1:54 to play in the third. The Beach would score the next three goals to put the game out of reach.

It is Long Beach State's second GCC tournament title, winning it in 2018.

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