Long Beach State University Athletics
Beach Water Polo Prepares for MPSF Tournament At USC
11/18/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Water Polo
Long Beach, Calif. -
No. 8 Long Beach State starts its postseason run this weekend with a matchup against ninth-seeded Pepperdine in the first round of the MPSF Tournament at 10 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 20.
With LBSU's two wins last week, the Beach was able to pull ahead of Pepperdine (11-14, 1-8 MPSF) and secure the eighth seed in the conference. Pepperdine lost both matches they played last week against UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara.
LAST TIME OUT
The Beach had an incredible run in the MPSF Tournament last season, led by six seniors. As the No. 4 seed in the tournament LBSU defeated No. 5 Cal in the quarterfinals, then upset No. 1 UCLA in dominant fashion, never trailing the whole match.
Long Beach State entered the MPSF Finals against Stanford in an exciting match that all came down to the fourth quarter as both teams entered tied at six. Stanford scored first, then the Beach answered with two goals to take the lead. The Cardinal tied the match back up at eight, and with just 15 seconds left, silenced the home crowd with the game-winning goal.
A tough loss to swallow, but it was a valiant effort from the Beach as they will look to ride that momentum into this season's MPSF Championship Tournament.
RIDING THE WAVES
Pepperdine finished the regular season ranked ninth in the conference after two losses last week to UC Irvine (12-11) and UC Santa Barbara (17-8). The Waves dropped to No. 12 on the CWPA National Ranking last week to tie with Harvard. After holding the No. 9 ranking for eight consecutive weeks, Pepperdine was surpassed by UC Davis, Princeton and Brown.
The Waves have played the Beach twice this season, one being an exhibition match earlier on at the UCLA Invitational. LBSU won in both meetings, including the last where Pepperdine hosted an exciting 11-10 win for the Beach in sudden victory. Redshirt freshman Austin Stevenson gave his team the game-winning goal.
LBSU has won five of the last six meetings against the Waves with the one loss coming in 2013, 10-8.
Pepperdine's scoring is led by freshman Marko Asic with 41 goals in the season. He had a season-high five goals in their loss to No. 2 Pacific on Halloween. Junior Mark Urban comes second with 25 goals, and senior Wesley Sherburne (who's played in only 17 of Pepperdine's 25 matches) is third with 33 goals.
The Waves' sophomore goalkeeper Zack Rhodes has played the majority of games, tallying 228 saves.
BEACH FACTS
Senior Pavo Ljepopio had an outstanding performance to end his last regular season at the Beach, grabbing 28 saves in the last three matches of the year. He had 13 saves in the loss to No. 2 Pacific, including two 5-meter penalty saves in back-to-back games against Pacific and San Jose State. He finished the regular season with 221 saves and a 9.13 GAA.
Sophomore Duncan Lynde also had an impressive outing to close out the regular season, scoring seven goals in three matches including a hat trick in LBSU's comeback win against No. 14 Loyola Marymount. With those goals, Lynde bypassed two of his teammates to become the fourth leading scorer on the team with 25 total goals.
Redshirt freshman Chandler Kaltenbach didn't slow down either, rising to 29 goals in the season after scoring five goals last week. He netted two against Pacific and three against San Jose State and stays as the second leading scorer for the Beach.
Both Lynde and Chandler Kaltenbach have nine matches where they scored multiple goals in, which leads the team.
Freshman Keegan Wicken still leads the team with 34 goals, despite only scoring one last week. Wicken is averaging 1.48 goals a match. Senior Dimitrios Lappas had a productive outing last week with two hat tricks – one against LMU and the other against SJSU. Lappas remains the third leading scorer on the team.
Captain Zacchary Kappos hasn't been the scorer he was in the past two seasons, but he has consistently given his team quality goals when they needed it the most. In the comeback win against LMU last week, Kappos gave his team two goals in the fourth period of the match to tie the game at eight, and then to take the lead with the game-winning goal. It proves that his leadership on the team is displayed not only by his actions but by his presence on the team.
Senior Josh Tice has scored in ten matches for the Beach, and has scored multiple goals in two. In both of those games, though, Tice led the team scoring four goals or more. In the first match against Occidental, Tice netted five goals for the Beach, and last Sunday he grabbed four scores to lead his team to victory over SJSU.
LBSU and its opposition are even in scoring to end the regular season with 229 goals each. The Beach have scored the majority of their goals in the second half while its opposition has scored most of their goals in the first.
The 49ers will look to keep their scoring higher than their opponents after this weekend behind their top scorers and Ljepopio in the cage.
TOURNAMENT CENTERAL
USC will be hosting the MPSF Championship Tournament this year. Live video streaming will be available to all fans for the first 13 games played. The third place and championship match will be aired on the Pac-12 Networks.
This is the site for the tournament along with information on ticket purchases:
http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/m-wpolo/spec-rel/2015mpsftournament.html
Here are the brackets for the MPSF Tournament:
Friday, November 20 (MPSF Play-In & Quarterfinals @ USC)
Game 1- No. 7 UC Irvine vs. No. 10 San Jose State (Play-In) 8:30 am
Game 2- No. 8 Long Beach St vs. No. 9 Pepperdine (Play-In) 10:00 am
Game 3- No. 4 USC vs. No. 5 Stanford 11:30 am
Game 4- No. 3 California vs. No. 6 UC Santa Barbara 1:00 pm
Game 5- No. 2 Seed Pacific vs. Game 1 Winner 2:30 pm
Game 6- No. 1 Seed UCLA vs. Game 2 Winner 4:00 pm
Saturday, November 21 (MPSF Consolation & Semifinals @ USC)
Game 7- Losers Games 1 and 2 (9th-Place) 10:00 am
Game 8- Losers Games 3 and 6 11:30 am
Game 9- Losers Games 4 and 5 1:00 pm
Game 10-Winners Games 3 and 6 (Semifinal) 2:30 pm
Game 11- Winners Games 4 and 5 (Semifinal) 4:00 pm
Sunday, November 22 (MPSF Finals @ USC)
Game 12–Losers Games 8 and 9 (7th-Place) 11:30 am
Game 13-Winners Games 8 and 9 (5th-Place) 1:00 pm
Game 14- Losers Games 10 and 11 (3rd-Place) 3:00 pm
Game 15-Winners Games 10 and 11 (Championship) 4:30 pm
(Winner of Game 15 Receives NCAA Automatic Bid)
Players Mentioned
