Opening Round Over, 2021 NCAA Women’s Water Polo Championship Shifts to Quarterfinal Play

The first, or opening, or play-in round (take your pick!) of the 2021 Women’s Water Polo Championship is now concluded, with Fresno State and Marist advancing Tuesday via victories over Cal Lutheran and Salem respectively. Now it’s on to the main event in this year’s championship: the quarterfinals later today at UCLA’s Spieker Aquatic Center—and a time for USC, Stanford and the host Bruins, the nation’s top three teams—to assert themselves.

By virtue of a narrow 9-8 win over the Salem Tigers, Marist (9-0; MAAC champions) draws USC (19-1; MPSF champion), the nation’s top-ranked squad, in the day’s first match at 3 p.m. The tournament’s top seed, the Trojans are seeking their seventh women’s title—and a combined 17th between their men’s and women’s programs—and feature arguably the country’s best collegiate player in Maud Megens. The 2021 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) women’s water polo Player of the Year, in July she (hopefully) will lead The Netherlands into the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Marist cannot expect any favors from USC Head Coach Marko Pintaric, much like they received on Wednesday when Salem Head Coach Justin Kassab inexplicably signaled for a timeout with six seconds left in a tie-match—just after his team had lost the ball. The resulting five-meter penalty was converted by Myriam Lyzotte, sending the Red Foxes into the quarterfinals for the first time in program history.

Fresno State had a much easier time against CLU, taking a 15-7 win over the Regals. At 7 p.m. the Bulldogs (13-5; GCC champions) will face second-seeded Stanford (12-5; NCAA at-large berth). The Cardinal had five losses this year——one less than the total from the previous three season, including a 2019 campaign when they captured the last NCAA title contested prior to a year-long COVID-19 shutdown. Stanford has won all four previous matches between the two teams, with the contest last February resulting in a narrow 8-6 win for the Cardinal, who got a late goal from Madison Stamen to seal the win.

The rest of today’s action promises more competitive matches. Arizona State—which despite a 13-11 record has enjoyed a banner season, including a win over Stanford for first time ever (after 24 losses)—will take on Michigan at 5 p.m. It could be considered a toss-up; the teams split their two matches this season, with the Wolverines (21-4; CWPA champion) winning the first meeting 12-10 on February 26 at Tempe, then dropping a 7-4 decision to the Sun Devils on February 28.

Hawai’i, with a lone loss (13-1; Big West champion) in an abbreviated season, will face host UCLA (13-4; NCAA at-large bid) at 9 p.m.. It’s not a favorable match-up for the visiting Rainbow Wahine for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that they have not beaten the Bruins in 21 tries dating back to 2009. Their most recent match—in February of 2020—was a 10-5 UCLA win. It’s hard to imagine the Bruins stumbling at home even If none of their fans will be on hand.

[Let My Spieker Grow! NCAA Says No to Live Fans at 2021 Women’s Water Polo Championship]

Speaking of which, if the NCAA had moved the start-times up one hour, it would have negated the stated reason for not allowing live fans to watch the most compelling women’s water polo action since March 2020, when COVID-19 began wreaking havoc in the U.S.

To view all the action live from Spieker, please click on this link for the NCAA coverage.