Last weekend, Men's Water Polo headed to Vallejo to compete in their first league action in the CWPA Sierra Pacific Conference's first tournament of 2017, hosted by Cal Maritime Academy. The Spartans had only one month to prepare for the tournament, and only 4 pre-season games to make everything come together for the competitive league play.
In game one of the tournament, SJSU took on familiar foes, Stanford. In recent years, Stanford has managed to pull off upsets against the Spartans, who have usually had more raw talent to work with than the Cardinal. This season, the Spartans came out with an attitude of staying focused on winning, no matter what the scoreline was. The game remained close in the opening quarter, but in the 2nd and 3rd, the Spartans began asserting their dominance. Captain John Moon was unstoppable in 2M, and Stanford was forced to double or triple team him to avoid getting scored on. Going into the 4th quarter, the Spartans led 10-6, with the game comfortably in hand. In the 4th quarter, Stanford began cherry picking, focusing only on offense, and were able to claim 2 goals, narrowing the score to 10-8. The Spartans stopped the bleeding there, preventing any more goals and winning the season opener.
In game 2, the Spartans faced UC Davis' "B" team. SJSU came out strong, taking a 3-0 lead out of the first quarter, and never looked back. Freshman Michael Rodriguez had 5 goals in the affair, and a variety of Spartans were able to score off of the counter attack. The Spartans came out of the match with a 15-6 victory, improving to 2-0 for the season.
The next day, the boys opened the morning with a matchup against UC Merced, a young team looking to improve from their last place finish last year. In the first play of the game, Merced was able to score, but the Spartans decided that that was enough. For the remainder of the quarter, the Spartans outscored Merced 5-0, mounting counter attack after counter attack. In the second quarter, Merced was able to scrape together 2 more goals, but the Spartans maintained a commanding lead. Sharpshooting Senior Keenan Bruni scored 3 goals in one quarter in the affair. The Spartans held Merced scoreless for the entire second half, winning by a final of 16-3 and extending their undefeated streak to 3-0.
In the final game of the weekend, the Spartans took on UC Davis "A." In previous seasons, the two teams have exchanged wins in very close games. In this contest, the Aggies came out and immediately took the upper hand, grabbing a 3-0 lead in minutes. From there, the Spartans calmed down and closed the gap to 4-2 at the end of the 1st quarter, featuring a beautiful goal by Joel Vargas. In the second and third, the dynamics of the game started to take shape. In terms of talent, the two teams were closely matched, but one or two elite players on Davis were able to capitalize on SJSU's mistakes nearly every time, slowly pulling the game out of reach. The great play of the leaders of the Davis team gave them a 10-4 lead going into the 4th and final quarter. From there, the Spartans were unable to close the gap, ending in a 13-6 loss, and ending the undefeated streak at 3-1.
Looking forward, the Spartans are now tied for 2nd place in the league along with Chico State and Cal Maritime Academy. The next action will take place this weekend (October 7-8) at UC Santa Cruz. Here, the Spartans will face stiff competition in UC Berkeley (undefeated league leaders), Chico State (tied for 2nd), Cal Maritime (tied for 2nd), and UC Santa Cruz (hosts).
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