At Fresno State’s Polopalooza, Stanford and Cal both handled Hawaii (although the latter pairing was an exhibition).
Next week, it looks like UCLA heads to the Cal Cup. Its Sunday game v Stanford is also an exhibition. UCLA has been dealing with remote classes, cancelled practices. The air quality is still “moderate.” Best wishes to LA and the Valley.
It was a great weekend of polo - great to see some women’s college games after a long break. Stanford looks really good. Even a perfect game from either Cal or Hawaii won’t be enough to beat Stanford this year. They’re absolutely stacked. Looking forward to seeing USC and UCLA play.
Kinda crappy there’s no stream and they only do FOSH for the UCSD games - they need to take notes from Fresno State on how to host.
Anyone know why they’re not using the Canyonview pool on Friday?
Predictions:
A bracket: 1)UCLA – 2)UCSD – 3)ASU — 4)Concordia
B Bracket :1)USC — 2)LMU ---- 3)UCD — 4)CMS
C Bracket: 1)FS ----- 2)Haw ----- 3)F’ton — 4)UCSB (the wheels begin to fall off at SB)
D Bracket: 1)LBS ---- 2)UCI ------ 3)SDSU – 4)CBU (wouldn’t be shocked if CBU beats SDSU)
UCLA > LBS easily ---- USC > FS (close, but Haw AND SC are too much in one day for FS)
UCLA over SC for 1st, FS over LB for 3rd
Up here at Cal there was a good game between Fresno St. and Long Beach St. Fresno won 15-14 in overtime with a couple of nice outside shots by Ochoa.
Davis kept it close with UCLA for a while, but UCLA ran away with it in the second half. UCLA’s centers dominated. Montellato probably had 5 goals and Pearson another 3 or 4. 17-8 final.
Cal beat Fresno St. 17 to 10. Cal’s offense looked much better than it did last year. They were lead by Swadling, but they quite a few players score multiple goals. They have been my surprise team this year. I did not give them much of a chance after losing Williams and Dempsey, but I think that they are going to upset a few teams this year and could make another deep run in the NCAAs if they keep improving.
Any recaps from the games up at Cal on Sunday? I was not able to make it out there. Look at the scores, it does not look like there were any surprises.
UCLA vs Stanford game was neck and neck, went into OT, etc but, for the most part, UCLA looked a better team. Both teams made some avoidable mistakes, which is probably normal for January. Neuchul, Woodhead, and Flynn played well for Stanford. Dhalluin is a great addition. Perhaps, Roemer was slightly less noticeable. Stanford goalies might need to step up their play. Sadly, I had to leave once the game went into OT.
Long Beach played better than I expected after losing their Serbian star to graduation.
I saw Long Beach St. twice on Saturday. I agree, they looked really good, especially against Fresno St. They played UCLA pretty tough too and the game was closer than the final score.
What’s frustrating is UCSD is doing the FOSH for their own games, but no one else’s - so they have the ability, but instead chose laziness.
Don’t @ me with “they don’t have the people / resources” - teams are paying ~$400/game entry fee to be there and they have the gate revenue - it’s just lazy.
Meanwhile, sitting her watching the Bruno Tournament on ESPN+ and even though the numbers are hard to read, at least the East Coast teams are making a effort to get the games on TV