The 11th and 12th of October were a very big weekend for the Men’s Club Water Polo Team because it was their first few games against their new competition. Over the summer, the Tritons were moved into a new division, including cross-town rivals San Diego State University, University of San Diego, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and UC Irvine. This put the Tritons against two teams they had no experience with before, both teams from Arizona, and left them with the runner-ups of last year’s national championships, SDSU.
The weekend opened with the Tritons taking on USD. Unfortunately, USD had to forfeit the game because they did not have enough players. UC San Diego lent USD some players and a friendly scrimmage was played. The second game of the day was against University of Arizona. This game quickly became a very physical game, with multiple ejections occurring on both sides of the pool. Luckily, the Tritons had done a lot of practice on their 6-on-5 offense and their 5-on-6 defense in the previous weeks and came away with a win. Sunday held the two toughest games for the Tritons. The first game was against ASU, whom the Tritons had never played before. This came down to a last second goal by ASU, sending the game into overtime. Unfortunately, the Tritons could not put a goal away in overtime and lost to ASU by one point. However, this loss gave the Tritons a new sense of motivation going into their final game against the number two ranked team in the nation, SDSU. This game was a thing of beauty as the Tritons pulled it together after the tough loss to ASU, and won their first game in quite some time against cross-town rivals SDSU. It was a wonderful end to the first weekend of round-robin play. Join the Tritons at Canyonview Pool on October 24-25, as they play against the University of Arizona, UC Irvine, USD, and ASU.
