Graig MantleThe Cal Poly men’s water polo team won the 2007 Pacific Coast Championships over the weekend, advancing them to the National Collegiate Club Championships.
Cal Poly was the No. 2 seed of their Pacific Coast division and was ranked seventh in the nation going into this weekend’s competition.
The championships were hosted by Cal Poly at the Recreation Center pool. The game schedule for the weekend had to be revised after UCLA withdrew from the championships.
Cal Poly won all three games and was able to secure an 8-5 win over rival UC Davis in the championship game.
UC Davis was ranked first in the nation and was the No. 1 seed of the division.
“This weekend we had a lot of stuff that we had been working on,” head coach Matt Landre. “They put it all together and this last game was the culmination of that. They did amazing.”
Cal Poly played their first game against Saint Mary’s College and won 13-4.
Saint Mary’s struggled to make shots against Cal Poly goalies Casey Ryan and Mike Peters. Ryan made fives saves in the first half and Peters made four saves in the second half.
Top Cal Poly scorers for this game included Daniel Harris with five goals and Brandon Ross and Ryan Smillie with three goals each.
The win against Saint Mary’s advanced Cal Poly to the next round of the championships. Cal Poly played their second game against UC San Diego. This close game resulted in a win for Cal Poly with a final score of 7-6.
Josh Mix and Kevin Heinichen lead the game with two goals each. The remaining goals were made by Bobby Erzen, Ross and Harris.
Ryan made eight saves during the game.
The win over UC San Diego sent Cal Poly to the championship game on Sunday. Cal Poly played against the undefeated UC Davis to compete for first and second place.
This highly anticipated game drew a large crowd to the pool. The 8-5 win for Cal Poly gave the team first place.
“We played our best game of the entire year against UC Davis . That was the game we wanted to play all season. There was a lot of hype and drama going on in the whole league, but all in all, it worked out in our favor,” said Erzen.
Mix, Ross and Harris kept the Cal Poly lead during the game with two goals each. Smillie and Aaron Shilling also made one goal each.
Ryan saved nine shots from UC Davis.
“Our goalie was phenomenal, Casey (Ryan). That’s a key position. If you don’t have a good goalie, it’s hard to win. He was amazing in there,” said Harris.
In two weeks, Cal Poly will head to Nationals hosted by the University of Arizona.
“We have two weeks. We are going to go back to conditioning and back to fundamentals. We’ll keep doing what we’re doing because it works,” said Landre.