Water Polo

The final men's varsity water polo poll in 2019 from the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) does not fully represent just how tumultuous this season was. Stanford, the top team in the country at the end after 15 weeks of polling, started off tied for second in the coaches preseason poll. In th...

BROOKLYN, NY. That the first-ever DIII men’s national was an unqualified success was abundantly clear to this observer. No, the match-ups at the DIII Collegiate Men’s Water Polo National Championship weren’t as compelling as the action at the 2019 NCAA men’s tournament; not many games can top the sc...

WHITTIER, CA. It was, as seminal moments in recent American water polo history go, not the most noteworthy backdrop. A media room on the Whittier College campus is where three of the most important decision-makers in NCAA varsity water polo explained a shared goal that came to fruition last weekend:...

WHITTIER, CA. In one of the year’s most noteworthy polo developments, USA Water Polo, the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) and the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) staged the first-ever national DIII men’s championship. On Sunday at Whittier’s Lillian Slade Aqu...

STOCKTON, CA. Almost without fail, championships are won by the team that takes charge. The Stanford Cardinal did just that Sunday afternoon at the Chris Kjeldsen Pool,  racing to a 9-3 halftime lead over host Pacific before rolling to a 13-8 victory in the title match of the 2019 NCAA Men's Water P...

WHITTIER, CA. It should come as little surprise to experienced polo fans that the two finalists for the first-ever DIII Collegiate Water Polo National Championship are both from California. Whittier and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps — rivals in the hyper-competitive Southern California Intercollegiate Athl...

WHITTIER, CA. Saturday night in front of an energized standing room only crowd at Whittier College’s Lillian Slade Aquatic Center, the host Poets and their Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) rivals Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) both won over Eastern foes to advance to the...

STOCKTON, CA. In a hard fought and well-played game which was tied 8 times, the top seed Stanford Cardinal advanced to the championship game with 15-14 sudden victory over #4 seed USC. Redshirt Junior Ben Hallock finished off a set play with his 3rd goal 11 seconds into the 3rd overtime period to gi...

Stockton, CA.Tournament host Pacific used their lethal offense and first-time starting goalkeeper Joey MacLeane to dispatch their GCC rival Pepperdine 17-13 in the NCAA semifinal Saturday night at Chris Kjeldsen pool. [caption id="attachment_405869" align="alignnone" width="700"] Joey MacLeane, Paci...

Bucknell University, a prestigious academic institution located in the idyllic Pennsylvania countryside, is far from the Northeast mega-city corridor, where Boston bleeds into Stamford into New York and into Philadelphia. A destination for future engineers, doctors and financial titans, for decades ...

WHITTIER, CA. It’s not Stockton and it’s not NCAAs, but the first-ever DIII Collegiate National Water Polo Championship offers something decidedly different and — for its target audience — higher level competition for a sport eager to embrace a spurt in growth. Located on the campus of Wittier Colle...

In 2019 NCAA Men's Water Polo Tournament action Thursday at Pacific’s Chris Kjeldsen Pool, third-seeded Pepperdine and #4 USC won and advanced to the semifinals, to be held Saturday. The Waves, appearing in the national championship for the first time in two decades, rode a six-goal explosion by Chr...

The UC Santa Barbara men’s water polo team was one of the enduring stories for 2019. A program record 16-match winning streak to open the season included wins in consecutive weeks against the nation’s #1 team. That success pushed the Gauchos to the top of the CWPA rankings for the first time ever. [...

2019 has been a challenging season for the USC men’s water polo program, the defending national champions. With a new head coach — and missing key members from what is typically one of the country's strongest rosters — the Trojans struggled early and looked to be out of the picture for a 15th-straig...

And then there were six. The Bucknell Bison opened the 2019 Men's NCAA Water Polo Tournament with a hard fought 13-12 victory in the opening round against the 29-0 Harvard Crimson at Blodgett Pool in Cambridge, MA.  In the survive and advance portion of the season, John McBride's team earned a trip ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA. Saturday in Blodgett Pool, plucky Bucknell and host Harvard competed in a winner take-all match, in this case a play-in game for the 2019 NCAA Men’s Water Polo Tournament. It ended as a most memorable day in recent Bucknell men’s water polo—and one most devastating for Harvard, seekin...

Saturday at Harvard's Blodgett Pool was a shining moment for the Bucknell men's water polo program, one that will not be soon forgotten. Not only did the Bison tag an undefeated Crimson team with a 13-12 defeat — their first loss in more than a year — they also won an NCAA tournament play for the fi...

CAMBRIDGE, MA. Behind an inspired performance from freshman goalie Adrien Touzot and an offensive explosion by senior Rade Joksimovic, Bucknell, the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) champions, came to Blodgett Pool and shocked host Harvard 13-12 in an NCAA play-in game, ending the Crimson'...

CAMBRIDGE, MA. Last weekend saw a bittersweet ending to an impressive water polo career at one of the East’s top programs. Two minutes into sudden death overtime — in his final game wearing his school’s colors — Armen Deirmenjian hit the winning shot to give Brown a 19-18 win over St. Francis Brookl...

In Union County, Pennsylvania, more than 60% of the votes in the 2016 presidential election went for Donald J. Trump. An elite liberal arts institution, Bucknell University is in Lewisburg — dead center of the county's unexpected groundswell of support for a politician whose signature issue was immi...