NCAA Ladies’s Water Polo Preview: Olympic 12 months Might Have Impression on Season Forward
Azusa Pacific’s 16-6 win over Cal State Monterey Bay earlier this month marked the start of the 2024 NCAA ladies’s season. It’s one that may see quite a lot of the identical from 2023. The previous two years—and in 4 of the final 5—Stanford and USC have fought for the NCAA title, with the Cardinal capturing three of these matches together with final 12 months’s remaining in an 11-9 choice.
However in an Olympic 12 months, with nationwide group gamers returning to their house nations to coach for Paris 2024—lots of whom compete for U.S. collegiate packages—there will probably be a major quantity of upheaval on the high of ladies’s water polo, particularly early within the season. Working example: Final weekend Stanford—with Jenna Flynn, Ryann Neushul, Jewel Roemer and Ella Woodhead now coaching with Crew USA—dropped two of its first 4 matches, a primary for the Cardinal ladies because the opening weekend of the 2000 season. This dumps the Cardinal—#1 within the Collegiate Water Polo Affiliation’s 2024 Preseason Ballot— to seventh on this week’s ballot. It’s the bottom Stanford has ever ranked in a ballot that dates again to 2008.
The Extra Issues Change…
Regardless of Stanford’s tough weekend, it’s virtually sure the Cardinal will probably be semifinalists for this 12 months’s NCAA championship, to be held in Might on the College of California at Berkeley’s Spieker Aquatics Advanced. Since John Tanner arrived at The Farm in 1998, they’ve been in each NCAA Remaining 4. In truth, the Cardinal have appeared in 13 finals the previous 15 years (2020 didn’t depend due to Covid and a UCLA semifinal upset in 2021 snapped the Cardinal’s ten-final streak).
So why would anybody guess in opposition to Tanner, he of 9 nationwide championships and 624 wins in 26 years in Palo Alto?
Maybe that is the 12 months the Bruins (seven titles), who haven’t captured a ladies’s championship since 2009, lastly get again to the winner’s circle. They actually may use a lift. All of the Stanford vs. USC discuss should get beneath the pores and skin of UCLA coach Adam Wright. He’s gained six titles on the boys’s aspect (two as a participant; 4 as a coach) however none since taking on the ladies’s program in 2018. UCLA hasn’t been to a remaining since 2017, when the Bruins misplaced a heartbreaker (aren’t all of them?) to the Cardinal.
There’s Cal, coached by Coralie Simmons. Satirically, one of many biggest polo gamers in UCLA historical past leads a Golden Bears aspect that has by no means gained an NCAA ladies’s title (one finals look, 2011) The ladies’s historical past is a direct distinction to the Cal males, winners of the final three NCAA championships and a file 17 titles. Goalie Isabel Williams is the defensive coronary heart of Simmons’ squad and the nation’s finest goalie. Possibly this can be a Cal 12 months.
USC (six titles) is second solely to Stanford in finals appearances the previous decade. The Trojans confronted the Cardinal in seven title matches, successful three and shedding 4. Casey Moon—his 17 years as an assistant makes him essentially the most loyal of Trojans—is in his first full season as head coach (he subbed for You Know Who in 2019 and was behind the bench when USC dropped the ultimate to Stanford). Regardless of the absence of 2023 Cutino finalist Tilly Kearns to Australia and USA wunderkind Emily Ausmus, who skipped her freshman 12 months to strive for gold with the American ladies, is that this a Combat On! form of season?
Different Packages That Will Profit in an Olympic 12 months
Possibly, simply possibly, the depleted rosters of the massive 4—all of whom reside within the Mountain Pacific Sports activities Federation—opens up alternatives to lesser-known packages. That features UC Irvine, coached by former U.S. ladies’s nationwide group assistant coach Dan Klatt, and College of Hawaii, which final Saturday beat Stanford for the primary time after 25 straight losses. The Anteaters rose to fourth in final 12 months’s remaining ballot—this system’s highest end ever. UCI retains Aussie Nioka Thomas whose father, Nathan, went to 2 Olympics with Australia.
Courtesy: Hawaii Athletics
Sadly, it’s doubtless that Hawaii—whose stylish head coach Maureen Cole is leaving Honolulu after 17 seasons, together with a dozen as lead Rainbow Wahine—will vie with UCI for an NCAA berth, courtesy of the Huge West. It’s one in every of six computerized NCAA berths in play for the 2024 match; there are additionally two at-large berths, more likely to be claimed by the massive 4.
Maybe this season’s greatest beneficiary will probably be Fresno State, which upset Stanford within the season opener. Led by head coach Natalie Benson, the Bulldogs have gained 4 straight Golden Coast Convention titles and jumped to #5 on this week’s ballot.
Princeton, which made its first-ever Remaining 4 in 2023 and tied UCI for #4 within the nation, will proceed to be the category of the East. The Tigers’ greatest 2024 impediment is the lack of Jovana Sekulic—an All-American who dumped in 76 objectives final season for coach Derek Ellingson’s squad and is competing for a spot on the American squad chasing Olympic historical past in July in Paris.
Right here is an early evaluation of NCAA water polo match qualifiers:
Huge West – Preseason Choose: UC Irvine; I believe Coach Cole will get Hawaii into NCAAs one final time.GCC – Biola picked to repeat. You gotta love the Eagles-an NCAA berth in 2023 and a postseason win in simply their second season.CWPA – Princeton favored to win a second straight title. That appears nearly proper.
Courtesy: Golden Coast Convention
MAAC – LIU and Wagner voted as co-favorites for 2024 MAAC title. Wagner is probably going steaming in regards to the additional time loss within the 2023 MAAC remaining that snapped a decade-long convention win streak and despatched the Sharks to their first-ever NCAA match.MPSF – No preseason coaches’ choose: Stanford and USC normally within the remaining. Trojans a protected guess for MPSF title. Two different MPSF squads are positive to be in NCAA subject of eight (solely MPSF groups have ever captured at-large berths).WWPA – Fresno State favored to win a fourth-straight title. Coach Benson’s Bulldogs might muscle their method into first Remaining 4.
