Cruising The Decks - Week 3

USC continues to roll while Johns Hopkins gets going after big win over Princeton

Sept. 25, 2007

By Trevor Freeman

Special to CSTV.com

	Trevor Freeman Trevor Freeman covers Water Polo for CSTV.com. E-mail here!

        ---   Column Archive   --- WATER POLO 12/2: Cal Emerges Victorious Once Again 12/1: Bears Take Defensive Battle 12/1: Trojans Too Strong For LMU 11/27: Cruising the Decks - NCAA Tournament Edition 11/20: Cruising The Decks - Going Wild 11/13: Cruising The Decks - Last Chances 11/6: Cruising The Decks: Hungry Like The Wolf 10/30: Cruising The Decks: UCLA Stuns USC 10/23: Cruising The Decks: East Up For Grabs 10/16: Cruising The Decks: Shakeout In SoCal 10/9: Cruising The Decks - Happenings From USC To...Salem International? 10/2: Cruising The Decks - Week 4 9/25: Cruising The Decks - Week 3 9/18: Cruising The Decks - Week 2 9/11: Cruising The Decks - Week 1 5/9: Stanford The Favorite Heading Into Tournament 12/1: Final Four Matchups Feature Stars 11/16: Things For USC May Get Dicey 9/3: St. Francis Has Big Dreams

It was another solid week of action as there were high-profile clashes between Mountain Pacific heavyweights as well as a solid mid-tier tournament in UC Santa Cruz's "Slugfest."

Conference play is about to heat up and things will be tight in both divisions of the CWPA as well as in the WWPA. Nothing has changed on the top of the water polo ladder as USC's water polo team continues to vie with their football team for the title of most dominant team on campus.

We begin our cruise of the decks with a water polo program that sits in the shadow of their bigger Los Angeles neighbor.

Eleven Shots Out Of Set

11. I got a chance to talk with Pomona-Pitzer's Alex Rodriguez, who is one of the best young coaches in the country. After leading the Sagehens women's team to the NCAA Tournament, he is getting his men's team primed for conference play. After playing a brutal non-conference slate, which included games against UC Santa Barbara, UCLA and Long Beach State, Pomona-Pitzer looks ready to get after their SCIAC foes. Keep an eye on two-meter man David Mock and utility player Field Garthwaite. Mock sets a quality hole and Garthwaite is deadly on the counterattack. Rodriguez also has high hopes for freshmen Ryan Balikian and Ben Hadley.

10. Harvard made the kind of comeback that turns around a season and gets the juices flowing. Down by as many as five goals and an 8-5 margin entering the fourth quarter, the Crimson rallied to stun MIT, 11-8. Harvard goalie Jay Connolly was tremendous down the stretch of the game as he stoned two shots in six-on-five situations in the fourth quarter. 

9. Fordham completed its first West Coast swing in years and had a very successful showing. The Rams went 4-2 with their two losses coming to Santa Clara and 19th-ranked Redlands in a 10-9 thriller. Fordham is the team to watch in CWPA's Northern Division after St. Francis (N.Y.). The Rams may have the second-most talent after the Terriers. The only problem is that it is young talent as freshman Alex Powell has been the team's best player. 

8. I blame myself for UCSB's tough times. Immediately after I wrote that the Gauchos were a national sleeper, they began a five-game losing streak. This week was extraordinarily excruciating as the Gauchos lost to UC Irvine, 8-7, and then to Long Beach State, 9-8, in double overtime. I am still high on this team, though. Their record stands at 10-6 and of those six losses, four of them have been by one goal and another was by two goals. Losing five games by six total goals is the kind of thing that can cause a coach to develop a drinking problem.    

7. Santa Clara has slowly begun to circle the wagons. The Broncos beat Fordham midweek and then looked great at "Slugfest." It all turned for this preseason Top 20 team in the game against Fordham. The Rams had a six-on-four against the Broncos late in the second quarter and didn't convert. Had Fordham scored a goal they would have cut the lead to one goal going into halftime. All of the sudden the Broncos are going into halftime questioning themselves after having blown an early lead, while Fordham would have been heading into halftime on a roll.

6. Stanford looked good in hammering Pacific, 20-11. Ten different players scored in a game that was never really close. 

5. UC Davis had a strong weekend as they went 4-0 at "Slugfest." The signature win for the Aggies was a 12-6 victory over Redlands. The Aggies have won seven straight games since pulling a no-show against Pepperdine in the NorCal Invitational. UC Davis has two dangerous games coming up over the next two weeks against Santa Clara and Pacific. Both teams have the talent to beat them if they lose focus.    

4. Big week for St. Francis water polo. They get featured in the New York Times and then go out and hammer Iona. Quietly, the Terriers are rebounding from their lackluster showing in the Navy Labor Day Open. They have won five straight games and are beginning to gel as a team. While they lost a lot of great players to graduation, St. Francis still has Botond Szalma. The two-time All-American is still the most physically imposing player on the East Coast. Coach Carl Quigley is one of the best in the business, and I guarantee this team makes a lot of noise at Easterns. 

3. Biggest win of the week for any program had to be Johns Hopkins knocking off Princeton, 12-11, on the road. They did it by outscoring Princeton, 4-2, in the fourth quarter. Hopkins has the best senior nobody talks about in Sean McCreery.  

2. USC looked scary good on Saturday. The Trojans' pounding of Pepperdine, 10-4, was an announcement to the rest of the nation that they have a gear that nobody else should try and match. Eight different players scored in that game as they both offensively and defensively overwhelmed a very good Pepperdine team.  

1. You have to tip your hats to everybody involved with that UCLA-UC Irvine game that the Bruins would win, 12-11, in triple overtime. Both teams are better for having gotten after each other like that.

Player to Watch

Botond Szalma, St. Francis: The Terriers lost a lot of their guns from last season, but their biggest one remains. The Hungarian will make his third All-American team this season and is somebody who cannot be guarded one-on-one. If his supporting cast can continue their improvement, then perhaps Szalma can get back to the final four. 

Contest To Keep An Eye On

Stanford and UCLA are playing again on Saturday in Palo Alto. The Cardinal got handled by the Bruins at the NorCal Invitational, and it will be interesting to see if they have improved from that disappointment. 

The Projected Final Four

1.  California (MPSF Representative)

2.  USC (at-large bid)

3.  Bucknell (Eastern Representative)

4.  UC Davis (WWPA Representative)

E-Mail of The Week

I got this message from Jay, who is a huge Redlands water polo fan:

"Great second week article. Your reporting is most interesting and exciting. It's fun reading about Ryan Hall. Once again, I am delighted to read cross divisional stories, particularly Eastern schools, as you know from playing that there are many collegiate and high school players that deserve to be recognized as legitimate competitors. Keep up the great writing we look forward to reading your column. P.S.: Adam Foley, the coach of MIT, is an ex-Redlands water polo star!"

Thank you for reading the article. The thing we most want to do with this column is give every fan of water polo a quick glimpse at what is going on with as many teams possible. Just as a note, the Redlands program is definitely one of the nation's best. Coach Tom Whittemore and his 300-plus wins are extremely underrated. Redlands should win the SCIAC and be a big-time sleeper in the WWPA tournament.