Here we go, another big weekend for the high school girls in Socal. Just about everyone is at this 32-team festival. Interesting potential quarterfinal: Foothill vs Santa Margarita. Can SM bump Foothill from the top 8? That would have to be a first for sure.

Here’s the schedule 

Also, don’t forget the OCvarsity.com page is a great way to get caught up on what’s going on in girls polo. There are articles, stats, videos, blogs, etc.

#2 and #3 lost over the weekend - #8 Santa Margarita over #3 Newport and #4 Montebello avenged an earlier loss by taking down #2 CdM (with 2 seconds left in the second OT period).

Santa Margarita finished 15th at the Santa Barbara by the way.

OCvarsity.com: Santa Margarita stuns No. 3 Newport Harbor
Daily Pilot: Rough first quarter leaves CdM in catch-up mode

I don’t personally know Montebello coach Kenny Clements, but thank him for this quote about the third place game at the Santa Barbara:
“When we played them in Santa Barbara, I think we could have beat them had we known the game time. [The tournament staff] didn’t tell me the time change. We thought we were playing at 3, but it was at 2. We just ate, stuffed our faces at Fatburger. We lost in a game we could have won.”

The Stanford Invitational starts this weekend. This tournament traditionally serves as an early benchmark for the season and this year has the top teams in the country squaring off early. Saturday and Sunday afternoon games are going to awesome.

Gostanford.com release on Stanford Invitational

Bracket A
UCLA
Hawaii
Cal
Indiana
Bracket B
USC
Stanford
ASU
San Jose St.
Saturday, Feb 3
8:30 am Stanford vs. San Jose St.
9:40 am USC vs. ASU
10:50 am UCLA vs. Cal
12:00 pm Hawaii vs. Indiana
3:30 pm ASU vs. San Jose St.
4:40 pm USC vs. Stanford
5:50 pm UCLA vs. Hawaii
7:00 pm Cal vs. Indiana
Sunday, Feb 4
AVERY POOL
8:00 am Stanford vs. ASU
9:10 am UCLA vs. Indiana
BAKER POOL
8:00am USC vs. San Jose St.
9:00am Hawaii vs. Cal
12:30 pm 4th place A vs. 4th place B – 7th place game
1:50 pm 3rd place A vs.3rd place B — 5th place game
3:10 pm 2nd place A vs. 2nd place B — 3rd place game
4:30 pm 1st place A vs. 1st place B — 1st place game

More rankings:

2007 CWPA Women’s Division III Top 10 Varsity (Preseason)
Rank School Final 2006 Poll Total Points
1 University of Redlands 2 99
2 Pomona Pitzer Colleges 4 93
3 Claremont Mudd Scripps Colleges 1 92
4 Whittier College 5 80
5 California State Univ.- East Bay 6 79
6 Occidental College 3 78
7 Chapman University 8 71
8 California Lutheran University 10 63
9 University of California, Santa Cruz 9 62
10 University of La Verne 6 59

2007 CWPA Women’s Top 10 (Preseason)
Rank School Final 2006 Poll Points
1 Hartwick College 1 100
2 University of Michigan 2 95
3 Princeton University 3 90
4 Indiana University 5 82
5 Brown University 6 79
6 Bucknell University 4 76
7 University of Maryland 7 73
8 Harvard University 8 65
9 George Washington University 9 60
10 Mercyhurst College 10 55
2007 CWPA Women’s Club Top 20 (Preseason)
Rank School Final 2006 Poll Points
1 Michigan State University 1 100
2 University of Florida 2 95
3 Fresno State University 3 90
4 Miami University 4 85
5 Cal Poly State University 5 80
6 University of Utah 6 75
7 University of Notre Dame 7 70
8 MIT 8 65
9 Northwestern University 9 60
10 University of California, Davis 10 55
11 University of California, Los Angeles 11 50
12 U. S. Air Force Academy 12 45
13 Rice University 13 40
14 Middlebury College 14 35
15 Yale University 15 30
16 Dartmouth College 16 25
17 Grand Valley State University 17 20
18 University of Oregon 18 15
19 University of Pennsylvania 19 10
20 Cornell University 20 5

we certainly don’t want to get in the business of keeping up with the pollls, but as we get excited for the women’s season, here are the preseason rankings:

CWPA 2007 National Preseason Poll
1.Southern California (99)
2. UCLA (96)
3. Stanford (88)
4. California (86)
5. Hawaii (81)
6. San Diego State(72)
7. Arizona State (66)
8. UC Irvine (62)
9. UC Davis (57)
10. UC Santa Barbara (55)
11. San Jose State (52)
12. HARTWICK (42)
13 (tie). Loyola Marymount and Michigan (33)
15. UC San Diego (26)
16. Long Beach State (25)
17. Santa Clara (24)
18. Princeton (17)
19. Cal State Northridge (9)
20. Indiana and Brown (6).

The ball gets dropped this weekend at Michigan. I went to their site to check out the teams and the schedule but found this article which is much more interesting: Big Ten Conference Water Polo: One Can Only Imagine

By the way, the teams in the Michigan Kick-Off are Michigan, Indiana, Marist, Colorado State and Santa Cruz.
Next weekend is the Stanford Invite. Here’s the schedule. And quick thoughts on the Top 5.
* USC: Loaded. Craig & Hayes will miss some time. Surprisingly, Figge will not be in Melbourne - but she has been a giant-killer with SC - expect a HUGE senior season from her. New Hungarian on the roster and more experience perhaps in the cage this year.

* UCLA: Always dangerous & lots of experience. They’ll be intact all year as for the first time since they’ve had varsity polo, they have no current athletes on the senior national team. Will Mathewson ride her game-winner to a huge junior campaign?
* Stanford: The Fab Four class of Hewko, McColl, Gregorka and Hansen seeks the elusive NCAA title (loss to LMU in ‘04, 3-2 loss to the Bruins in the ‘05 final, semi loss to UCLA in ‘06). Gregorka will miss some time with the senior team but Steffens is improving by the minute.

* Cal: The super frosh have arrived and should have an immediate impact - Reynolds, Hewko, Corso, Anderson - are you kidding? Top class bar none. Windes is a solid leader - they’ll spend some time without her - look for everyone to step up their play during that time.

* Hawaii: They’re back. Rumors that they would be missing several players seem to be false. They’re a fun team to watch. They start out the season once again with league matches in the Bay Area before the Stanford Invite. Seems like their seed in the MPSF tourney is always greatly anticipated when handicapping the conference crown.