Final Four is this weekend…Pre-season top 2 made in SC/Cal. UCSD has had a great year and are certainly no pushovers. SC is certainly familar with losing to UCSD in the NCAA Final Four….also the Tritons beat the Bruins this year for the first time. Navy is one of the best-coached, disciplined teams in the country….let the fun begin

Great Final Four Preview Article from CSTV

Articles:

CSTV on Bears

CSTV on Trojans

Triton Preview

Navy Preview

The NCAA Final Four is finally this weekend at Loyola Marymount University.

Brackets are as follows:

The game will be broadcast 5PM on CSTV…as well as

HEAD water polo coach Rob Swingle committed Jackie Crosby of Poway, Ca. to a National Letter of Intent during the NCAA’s early signing period. Crosby, a 5-7 center, confirmed her decision to attend Siena beginning next fall.

“Jackie has many skills that she can offer at the next level,” said Swingle. “She is a power center with a series of dominant moves to both sides. She can shoot from the outside and has experience as the prominent goal soccer on 6-on-5. Her nose for the goal and ability to score the ball gives her a real chance to help our offense right away.”

Crosby, led Rancho Bernardo High School to two straight CIF Division I semifinal appearances her freshman and sophomore year. As a junior, Crosby earned First Team All-Palomar League honors and guided her squad to the CIF quarterfinals. Crosby was an All-League honorable mention as a sophomore.

There are many ways to spin this Cal win..:

1.   Cal victory gives the players and team confidence that they can win the big game
2.   SC is a lock to win NCAAs.  Bottom line: Its hard to beat a team like SC twice in a row.

Fourth-quarter goals by freshman Spencer Warden and junior Jeff Tyrrell lifted the No. 2-ranked California men’s water polo team (29-4) to a 6-5 win over No. 1-ranked and defending national champion USC (25-1) for the championship of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament at the UC Irvine Anteater Aquatic Complex Sunday. With the victory, the Golden Bears receive the conferences’ automatic berth to the NCAA Championship at Loyola Marymount next weekend, Dec. 2-3. Sunday’s victory by Cal also snapped USC’s 44-match winning streak.

The Trojans had taken a 5-4 lead on a goal by Arjan Ligtenberg with 5:54 left in the fourth quarter before Warden converted a power-play goal with 4:00 remaining and Tyrrell hit the game-winner on a penalty shot with 1:12 left. The Bears had overcome a 4-2 halftime deficit on third-period goals by junior All-American Michael Sharf and senior captain Brian Bacharach.  The rest

San Diego completed its playoffs a week ago…sorry for the delay

Carlsbad beats Torrey Pines to win San Diego DI

DI Results

Doug Peabody’s Bishops Schools boys win San Diego DII

DII Results

Northwood 11-7 over El Toro to win the CIF Masters Tournament. Northwood and El Toro battled all year often meeting in the finals of tournaments including the CIF Finals last week….by the way,these teams are in the same league! The Masters Tournament basically combined the winners, runners-up, and some at-larges to create essentially an ultimate 16-team end-of year tournament. DII Santa Barbara almost knocked off El Toro before falling 8-9.

masterstournamentdraws_copy7.xls

OCRegister Article: — Let’s give it up for Northwood’s boys water polo team for winning Saturday’s inaugural CIF Southern Sectioon Masters tournament. They dominated D 1 champ El Toro, 11-7, in the final. Along the way, Northwood beat Division 6 champ Cerritos, D5 champ Murrieta Valley and Division I semifinalist Newport Harbor on Sat by two goals — one more than ET did in the semifinals.

That’s a very tough course over two days and Northwood did it after losing in the D 1 finals on Tuesday night. The T’wolves could have tanked but got off the deck in fine fashion. Read it all here…Albano Article

On Day 2 of the MPSF tournament, the higher seeded team won all four games beginning with No. 5 UCSB over No. 8 UCI 13-11. No. 6 UOP beat No. 7 LBSU 11-10. In the semifinals, No. 1 USC handled No. 4 Stanford 5-3 and No. 2 Cal used a dominant second half to beat No. 3 UCLA 8-5. We should see both USC and Cal in next week’s NCAA tournament regardless of who wins tomorrow.

UC San Diego and Navy are already qualified for the NCAA Final Four to be held at LMU next weekend.

MPSF results site with box scores and recaps.

USC water polo coach Jovan Vavic has inked another solid incoming class of athletes, signing six players to letters of intent as the newest members of the USC women’s water polo team. Joining the Women of Troy for 2007-08 will be Kristen Dronberger, Kathryn Indvik, Jessica Kutcher, Stephanie Lavayan, Courtney Ray and Sarah Van Norman. Read full article from usctrojans.com.

UCSB coach Danielle Altman announced her NLI signees recently as well. Claire Buchanan of Carmichael, Calif., Carly Clark of Westlake Village, Calif., Cailee Kilroy of Santa Barbara, Calif., Kathryn Nelson of Lompoc, Calif. and Michelle Beaudreau of San Mateo, Calif. are all expected to join the Gaucho water polo program for the spring 2008 season. Read full article from ucsbgauchos.com.

The Palo Alto Daily News also reported Meghan Powers of Los Altos High School has signed with Maryland.

Michigan’s official announcement of signees from mgoblue.com.

There were no upsets in the quarterfinal round of the MPSF championships as No. 1 USC, No. 2 Cal, No. 3 UCLA and No. 4 Stanford advance to Saturday’s semis.

The first three games were blowouts - USC 13-UCI 2, Cal 17-6 over Long Beach (10-1 at halftime) and UCLA 17-1 over UOP (13-0 after 3 quarters). In the Wigo Bowl, Stanford and UCSB were in a dogfight through three quarters before the Cardinal went 4-2 in the fourth quarter for a 12-9 win (Drac 2 goals, Jansen 1).

The UCI website is updating the game scores live-time.

Southern Cal will embark on an incredible High School Tournament this weekend. The top teams from every division merge into one large 16-team tournament. As may be expected, CIF DI champ El Toro is the number #1 seed followed up by Northwood. The seeds:

For the draw, click here:
masterstournamentdraws-1.pdf

LA Times Article

Toro’s boys water polo team played arguably its best match of the season Tuesday night and the effort was more than enough to beat Sea View League rival Northwood, 11-8, in the CIF-Southern Section Division I final.

In front of an estimated crowd of 2,500 at Belmont Plaza, the second-seeded Chargers (28-4) held top-seeded Northwood to a 1-for-8 effort on the man advantage and limited the Timberwolves (27-5) to two goals on six shots in the first half.

Read Albano’s Article

Final Playoff Brackets

In DII:

Long the home of Orange County’s second-tier boys’ water polo programs, the Southern Section Division II playoffs were dominated this year by Santa Barbara.

The top-seeded Dons became the first non-Orange County team to win the division since 1993, knocking off Ventura, 14-11, in the championship game Monday night at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach.

The victory earned Santa Barbara (29-3) its fourth section title since 2000, but the program’s first outside Division IV. Since the Dons wound up playing unseeded Ventura, its Channel League rival, Santa Barbara Coach Mark Walsh said the championship game didn’t feel unlike the others.

“I think if we would have played Servite or Villa Park, a traditional Division II team, it would have felt a little different,” he said. “But, it’s still sweet.” Read the rest