2018 MPSF Women's Water Polo Championship
Spieker Aquatics Center • Berkeley, Calif.
Quarterfinals • Friday, April 27 vs. San Jose State • 11 a.m.
Saturday, April 28 vs. TBD
Sunday, April 29 vs. TBD
Tournament Central
Live Stream
Tickets
Statistics
WHAT'S AHEADNo. 2 Stanford (16-2, 3-2 MPSF) enters postseason play when it begins its MPSF Tournament in Berkeley against No. 20 San Jose State (9-17, 0-5 MPSF) on Friday, April 27 at 11 a.m. The winner will advance to a Saturday semifinal at 2:30 p.m. against No. 3 Cal (18-4, 4-1 MPSF). The host Golden Bears earned the second seed and have a bye into the semifinals along with top-seeded USC (21-1, 5-0 MPSF).
Games from the Spieker Aquatics Center on Cal's campus will be streamed live via MPSF College Sports Live.
MPSF TOURNAMENTStanford has won five conference tournament titles in program history (2000, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2014) and appeared in 14 championship games. The program is 50-18 (.735) all-time at the MPSF Tournament since 1997. Results from 1996 are not available.
As the No. 2 seed last season, the Cardinal scored the game's first seven goals and beat CSU Bakersfield 14-2 in a quarterfinal on April 28. The next afternoon it rode two-goals efforts from Makenzie Fischer and Jordan Raney to oust USC 6-5. Tied at halftime, UCLA scored three unanswered goals in the second half of the final in Los Angeles to knock off Stanford, 6-3.
Stanford was the top seed at the conference tournament every year from 2009 to 2015.
An MPSF Tournament title isn't an indicator of NCAA success, at least for the Cardinal. Despite winning five of the past seven national championships, 2014 was the only season in which Stanford won both the league crown and the national one. It finished second in the 2012 and 2017 MPSF Tournaments and third place in both 2011 and 2015 before going on to win NCAA Championships.WHAT JUST HAPPENEDMakenzie Fischer scored five times, Aria Fischer added three and Stanford wrapped up its regular season with a 9-2 win against San Jose State at West Valley College last Sunday afternoon.
A post shared by Stanford Women's Water Polo (@stanfordh2opolo) on Apr 23, 2018 at 5:15pm PDT
AGAINST SAN JOSE STATEStanford is 46-0 all-time against San Jose State (records since 1997). In addition to Sunday's win to close the regular season, the two schools also played on Jan. 28, a 15-4 Cardinal victory. Aria Fischer scored a season-high four goals while Madison Berggren had her first of four hat tricks this year.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?Sophomore Makenzie Fischer has scored five goals in four of Stanford's last six games to vault herself into the conference lead in both goals per game overall (2.61) and in MPSF contests (2.80). In the six games since the Cardinal returned from its break for final exams, Fischer has averaged 4.00 goals per game. She's had multi-score performances in 14 of Stanford's 18 games this season and in all but 12 of the 44 games she's played the past year-plus.
CENTURY MARKFischer's fourth of the day against the Spartans with 56 seconds to go in the third quarter was the 100th of her career to join Kat Klass among active Cardinal in triple digits. Klass rattled the cage for the 100th time with 1:16 on the clock in the third quarter of a match at UC Santa Barbara on March 28 and currently has 103.
BACK IN THE CAGERedshirt senior Julia Hermann is back as Stanford's full-time starting goalkeeper in place of the graduated Gabby Stone. When Stone took off the 2016 season to train with the United States, Hermann was one of the best in the country. She posted a 5.67 goals against average in 110.809 quarters and made 244 saves, an average of 8.81 per game and the highest total at Stanford since 2001. A third-team All-American that year, Hermann had 10 double-digit save performances, made 31 saves in three games at the NCAA championships in Los Angeles and was voted the tournament's best goalkeeper. Hermann is 32 saves away from entering the school's all-time top five in that category.
STRONG STARTFreshmen Aria Fischer collected her fourth hat trick of the year in Stanford's win at San Jose State on Sunday afternoon, scoring once in each of the first, second and third quarters in addition to adding a pair of steals. She closed her debut regular season with three consecutive multi-goal performances against MPSF opponents and averaged 1.6 goals per game in league contests, tops among the conference's freshmen.
SEEING THE STATSStanford is second in the MPSF goals per game (12.00) behind USC (12.64) and leads in goals allowed per game (4.22), ahead of the Trojans (4.27). Individually, Makenzie Fischer leads in goals per game (2.61), Kat Klass is ninth (1.61), Madison Berggren is tied for 13th (1.56) with Aria Fischer (1.56) and Katie Dudley is tied for 22nd (1.00). Julia Hermann's 4.58 goals against average is second in the conference and her 8.24 saves per game are sixth.
HALLS OF FAMEFour-time Olympic medalist Brenda Villa will be inducted into both the International Swimming and USA Water Polo Halls of Fame in the coming months. A member of the Cardinal from 2001-03, Villa scored 173 goals and was three-time first team All-America selection and the 2001 National Player of the Year. An integral part of Stanford's first national championship team in 2002, Villa was named the Peter J. Cutino Award winner as the nation's top collegiate women's water polo player.
A four-time Olympian and two-time Olympic captain, Villa earned gold at the 2012 London Olympics, silver at the 2008 Beijing and 2000 Sydney Games and bronze in the 2004 Athens Games. A member of the U.S. Senior National Team from 1996-2012, Villa also boasts three FINA World Championships gold medals, five FINA World League Super Final titles and another three Pan American Championships golds.LOOKING BACK TO 2017Maggie Steffens scored the game winner with nine seconds left and Stanford won the program's sixth NCAA championship with an 8-7 victory over UCLA on May 14 in Indianapolis. The championship was the Cardinal's sixth overall and fifth in the past seven seasons. Stanford, the only team to appear in all 17 NCAA championships since its inception in 2001, has racked up a record of 36-11 postseason record.
WHAT'S IN STOREStanford will again be in strong position to repeat in 2018. Despite losing three of its top four scorers, the Cardinal returns a pair of 2017 All-Americans in Makenzie Fischer and Jordan Raney along with 20-goal scorers Kat Klass, Madison Berggren and Katie Dudley.
A post shared by Stanford Women's Water Polo (@stanfordh2opolo) on Sep 23, 2017 at 9:29pm PDT
Among six departed seniors, Stanford must replace a quartet of All-Americans in Maggie Steffens, Jamie Neushul, Dani Jackovich and Gabby Stone. Julia Hermann, a 2016 All-American while Stone was away training with the U.S. women's national team, will resume her place in the cage for the Cardinal.SUMMER WITH USAWPJordan Raney received her first senior women's national team action this summer and won gold at the FINA World Championships in Budapest with current teammates Makenzie and Aria Fischer and Stanford alums Jamie Neushul, Kiley Neushul, Melissa Seidemann, Maggie Steffens, Gabby Stone.
???? #GoStanford #SUTaipei2017
A post shared by Stanford Women's Water Polo (@stanfordh2opolo) on Aug 29, 2017 at 8:11am PDT
The United States won gold at the 2017 World University Games in Taipei in August behind the play of eight Cardinal. Current undergrads Madison Berggren, Aria Fischer, Kat Klass and Jordan Raney were joined by alumnae Dani Jackovich, Jamie Neushul, Kiley Neushul and Gabby Stone as the U.S. rolled to eight wins and outscored its opponents 127 to 38.
Freshman Sarah Klass and the United States finished fifth at the FINA Junior World Championship in Greece in September. Klass played in all seven games and scored six times on 15 shots to go along with a pair of assists.IN THE POLLSStanford remained No. 2 in the CWPA poll released Wednesday. USC tops the list with 100 points. The Cardinal has 96 points and is followed by Cal (92 points), UCLA (88 points) and Hawaii (84 points).