Bears Head To L.A. For MPSF Championships

Friday, November 16

Los Angeles, CA

1:00 PM

California

Austin College

11/15/2018 10:41 AM | Men's Water Polo

Weekly Notes Live Stream (Fri/Sat)Live Stream (3rd/1st)Live Stats

Cal Takes No. 3 Seed Into Conference Tournament

By: Cal Athletics

BERKELEY - The Cal men's water polo team gets the 2018 postseason started with a trip to Los Angeles as the Golden Bears head to USC to compete in the MPSF Championships at Uytengsu Aquatics Center. Cal carries the No. 3 seed into competition and will begin tournament play on Friday at 1 p.m. against either Penn State Behrend or Austin College. The winner of that match will proceed to Saturday's 1 p.m. semifinal against No. 2 seed USC and play concludes Sunday with the fifth-place game at 9 a.m., third-place game at 11 a.m. and championship at 1 p.m. The title game and third-place game will be broadcast live by Pac-12 Networks.

Cal carries a 16-5 overall record into the postseason after a back and forth Big Splash ended in Stanford's favor with a 12-11 overtime decision at Spieker Aquatics Complex. With one goal in the match, Cal senior Johnny Hooper finished the regular season atop the MPSF scoring leaderboard with a 3.67 goals-per-game average. Safak Simsek added four goals against the Cardinal and ended the regular season ranked No. 5 in the conference at two goals per game.

LAST TIME OUT
A big save at the end of regulation by Cal goalkeeper Bernardo Carelli helped force overtime but the Bears couldn't get the jump on rival Stanford and a last-second shot hit the crossbar and deflected out as the Cardinal emerged with a 12-11 victory. Safak Simsek led Cal on the scoresheet with four goals, the last of which came with 36 seconds left in OT and gave the Bears a chance to tie the score. The match also served as the final home contest for Cal's three-man senior class and Johnny Hooper, Odysseas Masmanidis and Vassilis Tzavaras all scored a goal (Masmanidis x2) in their last game at Spieker Aquatics Complex.

SCOUTING STANFORD

Stanford takes the No. 1 seed into the MPSF Championships by virtue of conference wins over USC and Cal but there isn't much to separate the top four teams (UCLA) included as the margin of Stanford's five games against that trio has been within two goals or less each time.
Ben Hallock leads Stanford in scoring with 55 goals and the sophomore ranks behind only his high school teammate, Cal's Johnny Hooper, with 2.89 goals per game. Hallock's teammates, Bennett Williams and Tyler Abramson, rank third and fourth, respectively, in goals per game which means each of the top five spots belong to either a Cal or Stanford player.
Oliver Lewis mans the cage for Stanford and made 12 saves in the Big Splash.

SCOUTING USC

A 12-11 win over UCLA to close the regular season left the host Trojans as the No. 2 seed at the MPSF Championships. Junior Marin Dasic scored the go-ahead goal with 19 seconds remaining and pushed USC's record to 28-1 on the season.
Sophomores Marko Vavic and Jacob Mercep lead USC in scoring with 55 and 53 goals, respectively. Nic Porter has been the Trojans' primary man in the cage and is averaging 9.77 saves per game with a 7.03 goals against average.
Cal and USC have met twice in 2018 with the Trojans earning a 13-6 victory at the MPSF Invitational and a 13-7 victory at USC.

SCOUTING UCLA

UCLA carries the No. 4 seed into the MPSF Championships after going 1-2 in conference play. That lone win came over No. 1 seed Stanford though with a 10-8 victory in Los Angeles two weeks ago.
Head coach Adam Wright's squad has leaned on balance in the scoring column with six different players at 20 goals or more this season. Alex Wolf is one of the MPSF's top goalkeepers when it comes to goals against as he ranks second at 7.05 at the conclusion of the regular season.
The Bears and Bruins have split a pair of matches in 2018 with UCLA earning a 12-11 victory at the MPSF Championships and Cal turning the tables for a 9-7 victory on Oct. 27 in Berkeley.

SCOUTING PENN STATE BEHREND

Penn State Behrend returns to the MPSF Championships for the third time and head coach Joe Tristan's group comes west with an overall record of 3-17. The Lions own a pair of wins over Connecticut College and a victory over Washington & Jefferson.
Junior Isaak Hatopp ranks among the most accomplished goal scorers in the MPSF with 39 goals in just 20 matches. Sophomore goalkeeper Matt Olimski also ranks among the conference leaders at his position and his 14.84 saves per game average puts him No. 1 among all MPSF goalies.
Cal and Penn State Behrend have met at each of the last two MPSF Championships with the Bears earning a 27-3 victory in 2017 and a 17-4 win in 2016.

SCOUTING AUSTIN COLLEGE

Austin College makes the trip to Los Angeles in its first year of varsity competition as the newest member of the MPSF. A 16-15 win over Monmouth on Oct. 14 represented the program's first victory and the Kangaroos enter the postseason with an overall record of 1-12.
Freshman Andrew Pope has emerged as a go-to offensive option for the Kangaroos and in their win over Monmouth he scored five goals and provided the game-winner with eight seconds remaining.
Austin College has played the role of road warrior all season with trips to Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Washington D.C., Maryland and Southern California already under its belt.

WHAT'S NEXT
Just hours after the MPSF Championships conclude, the NCAA Tournament field will be unveiled via press release on NCAA.com. Play-in games will take place over Thanksgiving weekend and during the final weekend of Thanksgiving with dates, sites and times TBD. The national semifinals and final will take place Dec. 1-2 at Stanford.