It has been an exhilarating first fortnight of college water polo. Schools such as Cal Berkeley & USC are historically ‘not supposed to lose’ to teams outside of the dominant MPSF conference, featuring USC, Cal, Stanford & UCLA who have been responsible for every single NCAA title since 1997.
However, GCC schools, in particular Pacific & UCSB have decided that the GCC is perhaps no longer the ‘less dominant’ conference.
Pacific
Pacific traveled to play at the Spieker Aquatics centre to take on home team Cal Berkeley on Sunday the 15th. A fixture that hasn’t seen a GCC team leave with a win since the conference was established. Pacific left victorious with a 14-12 win. New recruit Jereme Cote was responsible for 4 goals & 2 assists and sophomore goalkeeper Jon Barry notched 16 saves. Pacific will be looking to take their 4-0 form into the Aggie Roundup this weekend and keep it rolling.
UCSB
UCSB has had a dream start to their season, beating USC for the first time since 1990, beating Cal for the first time since 2004 and having their best start to a season in program history (9-0). In this perfect start, UCSB has had two wins that have been particularly impressive, against Cal & USC, as well as beating conference rivals in the Triton Invite Gold Medal Match.
Their first big win was against Cal at the Triton Invite in San Diego. This was a true team performance with no player scoring more than 2 goals for his team. It was a hard fought battle with Cal leading by 2 early and no goals being scored in the fourth quarter.
Next up was USC, this was a terrific game that was exhilarating for everyone involved. Cole Brosnan was the star of the day scoring 5 goals on 9 shots while adding 3 assists & 1 steal. It was a heated exchange which included 3 yellow cards and 16 exclusions. The score ended 13-9 in a game that crept away from USC after a 4-1 3rd quarter to UCSB.
Moving Forward
There are many times in the next few weeks where MPSF & GCC schools will clash and with a bit of luck, the competitiveness will continue throughout the season. As usual only, one MPSF school & one GCC gain an automatic bid, so these are the results that will shape the NCAA tournament as schools fight for at-large bids.
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