After scoring only 14 goals in its previous two games, the No. 4 Stanford men’s water polo team erupted for 20 scores in its 20-11 victory over No. 15 Pacific last weekend. Four Cardinal players recorded hat tricks, led by sophomore utility Drac Wigo, who had five goals.

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Sophomore Drac Wigo led the offensive charge for the Cardinal with five goals against Pacific last week. He is now tied with twin brother Janson for the team’s second-highest season goal total, with 12 through Stanford’s first six games. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/7850
Stanford Daily File Photo

Sophomore Drac Wigo led the offensive charge for the Cardinal with five goals against Pacific last week. He is now tied with twin brother Janson for the team’s second-highest season goal total, with 12 through Stanford’s first six games.

“Offensively, everyone came together,” Wigo said. “We played really well as a team. We’re still working through all the little kinks. We have a freshman that starts, so we’re working that out. I was pretty pleased with how we did this weekend, though.”

Wigo got some help from his twin brother Janson, a sophomore utility who netted three goals of his own. Junior utility Will Hindle-Katel and freshman driver Sage Wright also carded hat tricks. Freshman utility Jeffrey Schwimer, redshirt sophomore two-meter offense Ryan McCarthy and redshirt freshman driver Will Smith all contributed to the cause with third-period goals to seal the victory.

Senior goalkeeper Sandy Hohener tallied 15 saves in three periods of play.

“I felt like everybody played well,” Janson Wigo said. “We lost two important games the weekend before this. We trained really hard that week, and we all felt pretty confident going into [the Pacific game].

“Every one of us is a good shooter. We all stepped up and we all did the job that we were supposed to do.”

Led by its powerful offense, the Cardinal sprinted out to an 11-5 lead and never looked back. Every player got into the pool, and, while Pacific put up 11 goals, the final outcome was never in doubt.

With the win, the Cardinal improved to 4-2 after suffering two tough losses to top-ranked USC and No. 3 UCLA last week.

“We’ve been working a lot these last couple of weeks,” Drac Wigo said. “We had a rough tournament against USC and UCLA. We felt that we deserved [the win against Pacific]. We were really in the game; everyone was competitive, and we just came together.”

Head coach John Vargas made goalscoring the focus of last week’s practices, and it showed in the team’s offensive explosion against the Tigers.

“I think the main thing was our offense,” Janson Wigo said. “The whole week before [the game] we were training on offense, doing a lot of driving drills. We put it in our head that offense is our main thing, and we got it done.”

Despite the two early-season losses, Stanford is looking forward to a strong year, as the team lost only two starters from last year’s squad. The Card has high hopes, and many of its members believe they are capable of bringing home a national championship.

“I have really good feelings about this season,” Drac Wigo said. “We still do have a lot of young players, but we were younger last year and finished fourth [in the nation]. We lost two seniors last year; they were a big loss, but not compared to other teams.

“We have the most room to improve since we have most of our lineup back. We have a really good chance of doing well this year. Everyone on the team is striving to win NCAAs this year, and we all feel that we can.”

The Cardinal will have a chance to redeem its loss to UCLA when it takes on the Bruins for the second time in two weeks on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Avery Aquatic Center.