The Aggie Men's Water Polo team won the WWPA Championship last year and then lost a heartbreaker to Harvard 16-15 in a play-in game of the NCAA Tournament. The Ags are looking win an another championship this year and take another run at the NCAA Tourney.
Went 3-1 at the Triton Invitational with loss to #8 Long Beach State followed by victories over Air Force, #13 UCI and #12 UCSD. Tough one tonight at they travel to always powerful and defending NCAA champ Cal.
Water polo got off to a bad start in Berkeley, falling behind 4-0 before getting a score. Final was 15-10, Cal. San Jose State in the home opener this weekend.
Ags are in Southern California this weekend. Rolled over LMU, 22-5, on Thursday and play UCSD on Saturday. Ags and Tritons are 6-0 in conference play and winner will, duh, win the regular season title and top seed for the conference tourney. These two teams have met for the last few WWPA tournament titles.
Ags defeat UCSD in La Jolla today, 15-12, to finish 7-0 in conference and win the regular seaon WWPA title and top seed in the conference post-season tourney. They play UOP next Friday and then return to La Jolla for the conference tourney in two weeks.
Top seed UCD defeated #8 seed Fresno Pacific in first round Western Water Polo Ass'n play, 22-7. They will play the winner of this evening's match between #4 seed Concordia (Irvine) and #5 seed Air Force Academy in a semi-final tomorrow.
As the ucdavisaggies.com recap points out, the Ags' season record now stands at 20-6, marking the first time in history that the team has had back-to-back 20 win seasons.
UCD v UCSD at 1:00 tomorrow afternoon for tournament championship and auto bid to NCAAs. This is at least the fourth year in a row Ags and Tritons have met for title.
Other California water polo conferences finals, all tomorrow:
Mountain Pacific: USC v UCLA
Golden Coast: UC Irvine v. Pacific
SCIAC: Whittier v. Pomona-Pitzer
(Pomona-Pitzer won the SCIAC tourney and I think (not sure if score is final or partial) USC defeated UCLA to win MPSF title. GCC - Pacific v. UCI starts later today.)
Sorry, (but take that as you will, UOP is among my back-up schools)...UOP 9, UCI 5. Tigers win the Golden Coast Conference Tournament and earn the conference's first ever autobid.
Last spot should be determined next weekend when George Washington, winners of the Mid-Atlantic, travel to Cambridge, MA to play Harvard, winners of the Norheast.
NCAA's are at USC the weekend of Dec. 2, 3, but there will be a couple of play-ins earlier that week. I suspect USC and UCLA will get the byes. UOP will meet Pomona-Pitzer in one play-in and UCD will meet the east coast champ in the other. Perhaps a rematch of last years play-in against Harvard? Ags beat Harvard earlier this year.
And wrong I was. There doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to the seedings, but here it is. Pacific will play Pomona-Pitzer on Saturday the 25th with the winner playing Davis on the 30th. USC won the MPSF and is seeded third. UCLA came in second, but is seeded first and Cal came in third but is seeded 2nd. Pacific was ranked higher than Davis all year and beat the Ags in the regular season finale, but has a first round or play-in against Pomona-Pitzer. That may be because Pacific's conference, the Golden Coast, is in only its second year of existence and first year with an autobid to the NCAA's.
Ags will play Pacific on Thursday at USC. TIgers won easily over Pomona Pitzer, 16-2. In today's other game, Harvard defeated George Washington, 15-13, in OT. Harvard will meet USC on Thursday.
To no surprise USC easily defeated Harvard 16-4. SC will play Cal.
Articles talk about UOP upsetting UCD, but UOP defeated Ags in regular season finale, 13-10. UOP finished season ranked #5 while Ags were #8. Ags were down 13-8 with less than five minutes to play and went on a 4-0 run, but it wasn't enough. Heartbreaker, but in the end nothing to hang their heads about.
UOP fell to UCLA in one semifinal. USC squeaked by Cal in the other by one goal in an absolute war in the pool. 3 or 4 Cal players were majored including their best attacker Hooper. Lachlan Edwards from USC punched a Cal player and was thrown out for brutality. UCLA won the final over USC 7-5, a close game the whole way. Utengsyu Aquatic Center at USC is impressive. Schaal is a nice facility, but hopefully the Ags can continue improving the facility. It would be great to see them add stands on the opposite side of the pool like at Stanford and USC. By the way, the Aggies finished ranked 8th in the country, another great year!