STANFORD, Calif. – The top-ranked Stanford men's water polo team made a haul on Wednesday when the 2019 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation All-MPSF Awards were announced.
Redshirt junior center Ben Hallock repeated as MPSF Player of the Year, John Vargas was named MPSF Coach of the Year, and seven Cardinal student-athletes earned all-conference honors, with four selected to the All-MPSF First Team.
Joining Hallock on the first unit were senior attacker Bennett Williams from Laguna Niguel, Calif., who made the team for the third straight year; junior attacker Tyler Abramson from Orinda, Calif., honored for the second consecutive year, and senior goalkeeper Andrew Chun from La Jolla, Calif.
Sophomore center AJ Rossman from San Clemente, Calif., made the second team, while senior Dylan Woodhead and younger brother Quinn Woodhead, a sophomore, natives of San Anselmo, Calif., earned honorable mention as utility players.
Hallock, who leads the MPSF in scoring with 62 goals, recently tying his career-high with eight against Cal, becomes the fourth player in MPSF history to win back-to-back MVP awards and the first Cardinal since Tony Azevedo in 2001-04 to accomplish the feat. A native of Studio City, Calif., Hallock is the 11th Stanford player to capture the MPSF Player of the Year award and is the first from either gender to go from newcomer of the year to player of the year in consecutive seasons.
Vargas has guided the Cardinal to a 17-2 record and a berth in Saturday's 1 p.m. semifinals of the MPSF Championship at Cal. Thirteen of his wins have come against ranked opponents, nine versus the top-10, and five against the top-5.
Vargas previously won the MPSF Coach of the Year award in 2004 and 2018 and is the third head coach to go back-to-back.
This season, the Cardinal racked up a conference-high five player of the week awards out of 11 weeks (three by Hallock, one by Williams and Chun).