TRITON INVITATIONAL (SEPT. 2-3)
CANYONVIEW AQUATIC CENTER (TRITON POOL) | LA JOLLA, CALIF.

TOURNAMENT PAGE

SATURDAY, SEPT. 2
NO. 1 CAL VS. POMONA-PITZER | 9:15 A.M.
LIVE STREAM (OVERNGHT)

NO. 1 CAL AT NO. 11 UC SAN DIEGO | 2:30 P.M.
LIVE STREAM (ESPN+) | LIVE STATS

SUNDAY, SEPT. 3
NO. 1 CAL VS. NO. 7 UC SANTA BARBARA | 10:30 A.M.
LIVE STREAM (OVERNGHT)

NO. 1 CAL VS. CAL STATE FULLERTON | 3:45 P.M.
LIVE STREAM (OVERNGHT)

MONDAY, SEPT. 4
NO. 1 CAL VS. NO. 20 NAVY | 9 A.M.

The 2023 NCAA men's water polo season gets underway this weekend and 10 of the nation's top 20 teams – including the No. 1-ranked, back-to-back defending national champion California Golden Bears – will be at UC San Diego's Canyonview Aquatic Center for the annual Triton Invitational. Cal begins its quest for a three-peat on the heels of a remarkable season in which it finished 23-2 overall, earning its highest win percentage (.920) in 30 years and claiming its record 16th national title. The Bears bring back most of their key players from last year and will face three ranked teams from Sept. 2-4, including No. 20 Navy in a standalone game Monday at Coronado High School.

BEAR NECESSITIES

PAPA BEAR
Center Nikolaos Papanikolaou's teammates call him the "best player in collegiate water polo", and with good reason. The Athens, Greece native was already putting together one of the best careers the NCAA has ever seen by the start of the 2022 season, which ended with him scoring seven goals in the Bears' 13-12 national championship comeback win over USC en route to his second straight ACWPC Player of the Year award. Papanikolaou later became the program's first two-time winner of the Cutino Award, the prestigious annual honor given to the top player in NCAA water polo. He begins his fifth year at Cal as a four-time All-American and in the program's top five for career goals with 210.

FINE WEIN
Goalie Adrian Weinberg's confidence is at an all-time high following another All-American season – his third overall selection and second time on the first team. Weinberg's clutch save and assist to Roberto Valera in the final minute of the national title game sealed the Bears' second straight championship, and he followed that up by competing and starting in three separate tournaments for Team USA over a five-month span. That included an outstanding showing in the Men's Water Polo World Cup in June, where he averaged nine saves per game and helped Team USA secure the bronze medal in a penalty shootout win over Hungary. Weinberg went on to become the team's top choice at goalkeeper at the World Aquatics Championships the following month.

STRONG RETURNING CAST
The 2023 Bears are made up of a highly-experienced group of returners that includes eight fifth-year seniors and almost the entirety of their championship-winning starting lineup. Junior attacker Max Casabella joins Papanikolaou and Weinberg among Cal's first-team All-American returners. He finished 2022 just one goal behind Papanikolaou for the team lead with 61, putting up four five-goal performances and making the All-NCAA Championship First Team. Fellow two-time All-American Valera – whose third-leading 54th goal of the year won the national championship game – is also back. In all, Cal brings back seven of the eight players who scored at least 20 goals last season.

REPEAT SUCCESS
No men's water polo program has won more national championships than Cal, which claimed its 16th in 2022 in legendary fashion by coming back from four goals down over the final six minutes to defeat USC 13-12 in front of its home crowd at Spieker Aquatics Complex. It was the second straight year that the Bears clinched the title against USC by the same final score. Out of Cal's 16 championships, only two of them (1977, 2016) were not part of a back-to-back run. Only three times in NCAA men's water polo history has a team completed a three-peat, with the Bears doing so twice from 1973-75 and 1990-92.

ALL HE DOES IS WIN
Kirk Everist enters his 22nd season as Cal's head coach fresh off his second straight national coach of the year honor – his fourth overall – and his record-breaking third consecutive MPSF Coach of the Year award. The USA Water Polo Hall of Famer owns an all-time coaching record of 436-129 (.772) and has won seven national championships at Cal, five coming as a coach and two as a player.

BEARS EARN NO. 1 PRESEASON RANKING
For the second straight year, the Bears begin the season as the nation's top-ranked team, as Cal topped both the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) preseason poll and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) coaches poll. This marks the fifth time since 2008 that the Bears will start the year with a No. 1 national ranking.

BEARS WITH BRAINS
Excelling both inside and outside of the pool, the Bears hauled in numerous academic awards from the 2022-23 school year, including 15 ACWPC All-Academic nods – tied for the program's most since 2009. They also brought in nine MPSF All-Academic and Pac-12 Honor Roll honors, while individually, Jordi Gascon earned a spot on the College Sports Communicators (CSC) At-Large Academic All-District Team.


RECENT HEADLINES
Back In Camp: Men's Water Polo


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