Long Beach State University Athletics
Beach Water Polo Opens Season With Triton Invitational
9/1/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Water Polo
Long Beach, Calif. -
Long Beach State will start the season at UC San Diego for the Triton Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 5 and Sunday, Sept. 6. Redlands will be the 49ers first opponent of the tournament, facing off on Saturday at 9:50 a.m. UC Santa Barbara will follow at 1:20 p.m. to end the day. Both matches will take place at the Canyonview Pool. The Beach will then take on a familiar foe in Loyola Marymount the following day at noon and will finish off with Pacific at 4 p.m. Both matches will take place at the Triton Pool.
The 49ers participated in this tournament last season and went 4-0. Loyola Marymount is the only team from those opponents last year that LBSU will face this weekend.
Head coach Gavin Arroyo, who was named MPSF Coach of the Year last season, will be going into his 10th season with the Beach. LBSU will also return last season's leading scorer Zacchary Kappos, who led the scoring for the 49ers in the first two matches of the tournament last season. Kappos, along with fellow senior Dimitrios Lappas, scored in all four games of the tournament for the Beach.
Starting goalie Pavo Ljepopio will also return for LBSU. Ljepopio totaled 19 saves in the tournament last season and had 233 total saves for the year.
LBSU was picked to finish sixth in the 2015 MPSF Coaches' Poll grabbing 42 first place votes. UCLA, defending NCAA Champions, were picked first with 78 votes. USC (66), California (65) and Stanford (65) were close two, three and four picks, and Pacific (44) rounded out the top five. The 49ers finished with a 20-7 overall record last season and fell to Stanford in the MPSF Tournament Finals.
The 49ers will continue the season at Los Angeles, Calif. for the UCLA Invitational the following weekend on Saturday, Sept. 12.
