By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor
No conference in the U.S. can beat the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) when it comes to men’s and women’s water polo success. Last spring, the top four programs qualifying for the NCAA women’s tournament—#1 Stanford, #2 UCLA, #3 USC and #4 Cal—were MPSF members as well as part of the legendary Pac-12 Conference. The Cardinal beat the Bruins 8-7 for the 2017 NCAA title; since it’s founding in 2001 only Pac-12 teams have won the country’s top women’s tournament.
On the men’s side, these same four team have traded the NCAA title the past two decades—since Pepperdine won in 1997—and in 26 of the past 27 years. Despite the formation of the Golden Coast Conference, which two years ago siphoned of five non-Pac-12 members of the MPSF, Cal, Stanford, UCLA and USC are again at the top of the national polls.
Given that 2018 will likely see a continuance of Pac-12 dominance at NCAA’s, matches this weekend between #1 USC and #2 Cal as well as #3 UCLA versus #4 Stanford clarified the MPSF hierarchy and potential berths for the upcoming NCAA Men’s Tournament, where one of these four teams will be on the outside looking in.
In one of the most impressive defensive performances of the season, Cal stifled a USC offense that had notched 364 goals (16.5 goals per game) coming into the match, as the host Golden Bears registered a 6-3 victory over the Trojans Saturday afternoon in Berkeley’s Spieker Aquatics Complex.
Led by senior goalkeeper Kevin Le Vine’s 18 saves, the Cal defense shutout the potent USC offense in the second and fourth quarters, and held scoreless a trio of top Trojans—Marco Vavic (41 goals), Blake Edwards (39) and Grant Stein (30). Playing without Luca Cupido, their top scorer with 50 tallies, the Golden Bears (18-1; 2-0 MPSF) got just enough offense from Spencer Farrar (2 goals) Conor Neumann (2) Odysseas Masmanidis and Johnny Hooper to unseat the top-ranked Trojans (22-2; 1-1 MPSF).
In the weekend’s other marquee match-up, #3 UCLA traveled to Palo Alto to face #4 Stanford. The Bruins, picked fourth in the pre-season poll of MPSF coaches, stunned their conference foes by racing to the 2017 Mountain Pacific Invitational title with wins over both Cal and USC. A loss last month to UC Irvine as well as one last week to Cal blunted UCLA’s momentum. Saturday’s 7-5 loss to the Cardinal puts the Bruins (17-3, 0-2 MPSF) in the precarious position of going winless in the MPSF entering the final week of conference regular season play. They will host cross-town rival USC next Saturday in Westwood.
The victory extends the Cardinal’s winning streak to 10 games and will almost certainly push them past the Bruins for #3 in the national rankings. Powered by freshman Ben Hallock’s hat trick—he now has a team-leading 52 goals on the season—and a strong game in goal by senior Drew Holland (8 saves), Stanford (16-3; 1-1 MPSF) has their own rivalry game next weekend when they host sure to be # Cal at the Avery Aquatics Center.
The MPSF Tournament, to be held November 17-19 at Stanford, will put the finishing touches on the NCAA bracket. The tournament winner will likely be the top seed in the NCAA bracket while the tournament runner up will get an at-large bid—and is likely be the #2 seed at NCAAs. Baring a major upset—such as Cal losing in the semis—the third-place finisher is almost certain to get the other at-large bid and will have a play-in match in Friday, December 1 at USC’s Uytengsu Aquatics Center.
Stay tuned to see who’s on the outs in the MPSF’s game of musical chairs.