Cruising The Decks - Week Four

Starting to get a better look at the top national contending teams

Oct. 2, 2007

	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 strong week of action highlighted by a number of one-goal affairs.  The most riveting occurred at McDonald's Swim Stadium as Long Beach State gave top-ranked USC its biggest scare of the season in a 9-8 loss.  The Gauchos of UC Santa Barbara were once again the hard luck kids of the week as they dropped a pair of heartbreakers.  Stanford and UCLA along with Santa Clara and UC Davis also engaged in a pair of thrilling affairs.  Our national look begins, though, with a trip across the country to New York's Westchester County.

Eleven Shots Out Of Set

11.  A nice little story is emanating out of New Rochelle, N.Y.  One of Iona's top players this season is Joe Przekota.  If you recognize the name it is because his older brothers John, Dominik and Chris all preceded him at Iona.  Having had the opportunity to personally play against two of the brothers, I can tell you they are all fierce competitors who got the most out of their abilities.  Joe may be the best of the bunch as he scored 50 goals as a freshman and is off to a fabulous start this season.  The Chicago native has 41 goals through 13 games and has won the CWPA Northern Division's Player of the Week honor once already.

10.  Big game by Mercyhurst's all-time leading scorer Andrew Schonhoff on Saturday.  The St. Louis native dropped seven goals in a 16-9 win over Gannon.  Schonhoff is only a junior and was an NCAA Division II First-Team All-American last year. 

9.  Bucknell got the car started a little too late against Navy as the Bison lost in the semifinals of the ECAC Championships, 9-7.  The Bison were down 7-3 at the half and were in the position of having to try and rally against a good Navy team.

8.  I had a chance to speak with some people associated with the Fordham program.  They wanted me to make sure I talked about the way goalie Timmy Will has played this season.  Will is emerging as one of the best goalies on the East Coast.  His two-handed save in overtime on a 5-meter penalty shot against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps was electric.

7.  I didn't like the way California looked against Pacific even though they won 17-7 by scoring nine unanswered goals in the third and fourth quarter.  Pacific is a team that the Golden Bears need to be putting away early. 

6.  Ssssshhhh...here comes St. Francis.  The Terriers beat Navy, Princeton and Johns Hopkins en route to winning their fourth straight ECAC championship.  St. Francis is notorious for starting off slow and picking up steam through the rest of the year as their conditioning improves.  One thing coach Carl Quigley has to be particularly happy about is the play of freshman goalie Nikola Djuric, who was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.

5.  You have to feel for UCSB coach Wolf Wigo after watching his team lose 9-8 to UC Irvine.  Of the Gauchos seven losses, five are now by one goal and another is by two goals.  This one was just brutal as the Gauchos lost on a 6-on-5 goal with 25 seconds left in the game.  UC Santa Barbara is a very good team that could be a sleeper in the MPSF.  The Gauchos just have to figure out how to win these close games.

4.  On the flip side, Irvine is getting into these one-goal contests and has been figuring out a way to win them.  This week the Anteaters knocked off Long Beach State 7-6 and then UCSB 9-8.  There is something to be said about a team that finds a way to win the close ones.  It wouldn't surprise me if the Anteaters toppled USC or Cal during the regular season or in the MPSF Tournament.  In every game UC Irvine plays, the Anteaters know they will have the biggest gun in the water in senior Tim Hutten.

3.  One of the top contests of the weekend was between a surging Santa Clara and UC Davis.  The Broncos held a 6-3 lead midway through the fourth quarter and looked like they were about to notch their biggest win of the season.  On the ropes, the Aggies came storming back.  UC Davis put home four unanswered goals with the game-winner coming on a lob shot from All-American Nick Arrigo with 25 ticks left on the clock. 

The Aggies have a big weekend coming up as they play Pacific on Friday, Harvard and California on Saturday and Air Force on Sunday.  I am particularly interested in the game against California.  The first time UC Davis played the Golden Bears they lost 17-3 in a game that was never close.  From all accounts, the Aggies played scared in that game. UC Davis is a good team that is better than that score.  It will be interesting to see if Davis can show up and give the Golden Bears a test.

2.  Tough week for Long Beach State as they lost to both USC and UC Irvine by one goal.  Even in losing, the 49ers have announced to the rest of the NCAA that they are a sleeper.  Leading USC 6-5 going into the fourth quarter at McDonald's Swim Stadium is no small feat.  This team is only going to get better as Jeff Greenwood and Justin Koeppen are only sophomores and Jake Kinne is a junior.

1.  Huge win for Stanford over the weekend.  After getting their pants pulled down by USC and UCLA at the NorCal Invitational, it looked as if the Cardinal were a team that was going to take a step back this season.  The win over UCLA solidifies the Cardinal as a real contender in the Mountain Pacific.  Sandy Hohener was outstanding in the net as he had thirteen saves in the winning effort.

Player to Watch

Dragan Bakic, Pacific:  Bakic notched the 200th goal of his college career on Saturday in a 19-13 win over Cal Baptist.  He's easily one of the best seven offensive players in the nation.  He will join former Olympian Brad Schumacher as being a four-time All-American for the Tigers.    

Contest To Keep An Eye On

The Claremont Convergence is this weekend and there is a nice mix of teams that will be making the trip.  Pepperdine, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Pomona-Pitzer, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Santa Clara, Cal Lutheran, Iona, Occidental, Whittier, La Verne, MIT, Cal Maritime, Chapman, Concordia, UC Santa Cruz, Washington & Jefferson and Redlands comprise the field. 

Three matchups to keep an eye on are Brown versus Pepperdine, Brown versus Santa Clara and Johns Hopkins versus Redlands.  The Bears have the manpower to keep the game close with Pepperdine if the Waves come out flat.  The games between Brown and Santa Clara along with Hopkins and Redlands are important matchups between the WWPA and CWPA.  Hopkins getting the win in a midseason game like this could go a long away in proving the CWPA representative deserves the No. 3 seed at the NCAA Final Four.

The Projected Final Four

1.  California (MPSF Representative)

2.  USC (at-large bid)

3.  UC Davis (WWPA Representative)

4.  St. Francis (Eastern/CWPA Representative)

E-Mail of The Week

This week's question came from Mark, who is a concerned father.  He asked, "My son is a junior and he is beginning to draw interest from a number of schools.  Do you have any advice for him on which programs you feel are the best?  Keep writing this column, yours is the only real opinion column on NCAA water polo."

CSTV will have my head if I start giving my brutally honest opinions on what programs are run the best. However, here is some advice I will dispense and I hope every high school kid who is being recruited to play NCAA water polo reads.  Before committing to a USC, Cal, Stanford, UCLA or Pepperdine, take a look at the rosters and ask yourself, "Do I have any realistic chance of seeing the water within two years?"  If the answer is "no," then pick up that brochure you received from Bucknell, Fordham, Santa Clara, George Washington, etc.

Far too many players commit to these bigger schools and then end up quitting the sport.  When I was in high school, I played for Marin Water Polo Club.  My senior year, we probably had the best talent in the country.  Our team sent three players to UCLA, two players to California, one player to Pepperdine, one player to Long Beach State, two players to Fordham and one player to UC Davis.  Of the seven players that went to Mountain Pacific schools, two of them became full-fledged stars in Blake Wellen (probably the most underrated 2-Meter Guard over the past fifteen years) and Joe Kaiser.  Two others started some games but were never really impact players.  The other three guys quit either before they got to campus or soon after (one of the people who quit still possesses the greatest screw shot I have ever seen).  On the flip side, all three players who went to Fordham and UC Davis got plenty of minutes and were key contributors to their team's success.

Kudos to the guys that want the challenge of joining a top-tier team and end up achieving their goal of starting. However, make sure that goal is realistic.  Check the rosters and make a smart decision.  And remember, of the four teams that make the Final Four, one comes from the East and one comes from the WWPA.  If making the Final Four and dancing on the biggest stage in American water polo is your dream then just know that the dream is a lot easier if you are playing out East or in the WWPA.