An automatic berth to the NCAA men’s water polo championships will be up for grabs this weekend at the MPSF tournament at Long Beach State.
The university’s newly-dedicated Ken Lindgren Aquatics Center will play host to the tournament Friday through Sunday. The winner of Sunday’s 3 p.m. championship match will earn an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament at UC San Diego, Dec. 6-7.
UCLA (25-2) is the tournament’s No. 1 seed followed by No. 2 Stanford (22-3), No. 3 and six-time defending NCAA champion USC (21-4) and host No. 4 Long Beach State (20-6).
The Bruins went 8-0 in the MPSF and open Friday at 3 p.m. against the winner of the 8:30 a.m. play-in game between Pacific (14-11) and UC Santa Barbara (9-13). UCLA’s conference-leading defense is anchored by goalie Garrett Danner (El Toro). Foothill product Paul Reynolds is the Bruins’ second-leading scorer with 44 goals.
Stanford and high-scoring attacker Bret Bonanni (Mater Dei) starts against No. 7 Pepperdine (10-13) at 1:30 p.m. while USC takes on No. 6 UC Irvine (15-11) at 11:30 a.m. Bonanni leads the Cardinal with 81 goals, second in the conference behind UC Irvine’s Lovre Milos (88).
USC’s defense features freshman goalie McQuin Baron (Mater Dei), third in the conference with 6.88 goals-against average.
Long Beach State opens against No. 5 Cal (20-6) at 10 a.m. The Golden Bears won two of the teams’ three regular-season games but the 49ers won the conference match, 12-10. Left-hander Nolan McConnell (Laguna Beach) is Long Beach State’s No. 2 scorer with 45 goals while freshman Luca Cupido (Newport Harbor) ranks third for Cal with 40.
