May 11, 2016
SAN DIEGO -
SDSU Water Polo Weekly Release
Game Week Preview
NCAA Championship
T- No. 13 San Diego State (18-16) vs. No. 1 USC (23-0)
Friday, May 13 | Spieker Aquatics Center | Los Angeles, Calif. | 3:30 p.m. PT
T- No. 13 San Diego State (18-16) vs. T-No. 4 Michigan (29-6) or No. 6 Arizona State (19-7)
Saturday, May 14 | Spieker Aquatics Center | Los Angeles, Calif. | 1:45 p.m. or 3:30 p.m. PT
T- No. 13 San Diego State (18-16) vs. TBD
Sunday, May 15 | Spieker Aquatics Center | Los Angeles, Calif. | TBD
Storylines
- San Diego State continues NCAA Championship action this week in Los Angeles as it finds itself among the final eight teams after defeating Wagner in an NCAA play-in game on Tuesday. The Aztecs will face USC on Friday at 3:30 p.m. PT at Spieker Aquatics Center on the campus of UCLA.
- All three SDSU games will be streamed live at NCAA.com. Links to the stream will be available Friday, Saturday and Sunday at GoAztecs.com.
- The Aztecs opened their third NCAA Championship appearance with a 7-4 victory over Wagner at UC San Diego's Canyonview Aquatics Center. San Diego State scored the game's first three goals and enjoyed a 6-2 halftime lead before cruising to the win. SDSU was 4-for-7 on 6-on-5 opportunities and held the Seahawks to just one goal in eight power-play chances.
- Individually against Wagner, San Diego State was led by Alyssa Diacono's three goals and her six drawn ejections. Nikole Ferrari had two goals, two steals and one assist, while Caroline Israels and Makena Magro each scored once to round out the offense. Goalkeeper Rachel Mitchell continued her outstanding play with a game-high 13 stops, giving her 62 saves over her last four games (15.5 saves per game).
- SDSU held a high-powered Wagner offense to a season-low four goals in snapping the Seahawks' 14-game winning streak. Since a win over Siena on March 26, Wagner was averaging 14.6 goals before being held to its fewest goals scored since an 8-4 loss to Hawai'i back on Jan. 23. Over its last four outings, San Diego State is holding foes to 5.8 goals per contest.
- The win on Tuesday improved SDSU's all-time NCAA Championship record to 4-3 and ran its NCAA winning streak to three games. The four goals allowed, meanwhile, matched the fewest the Aztecs had allowed in an NCAA tournament game (Pomona-Pitzer, 2008).
- SDSU's all-time results at the NCAA Championship - 2007: W, 11-10 vs. LMU; L, 4-13 vs. Stanford; L, 6-13 vs. USC. ... 2008: L, 8-9 vs. UC Davis; W, 11-4 vs. Pomona-Pitzer; W, 12-9 vs. Michigan. ... 2016: W, 7-4 vs. Wagner.
- All three NCAA Championship appearances have come under 18th-year head coach Carin Crawford, who was named the Golden Coast Conference Coach of the Year on Wednesday. The honor is the first of her career and is the first awarded to any head coach in the history of the program. This season, Crawford led SDSU to its third straight undefeated conference campaign (7-0) and its first conference tournament crown.
- San Diego State will meet USC for the second time this season. In the April 2 home game, the Women of Troy ended the first quarter with a 4-1 lead and put up another four-spot in the second en route to the 13-3 victory.
- SDSU has faced both of Saturday's possible opponents in Michigan and Arizona State. The Aztecs dropped a 12-9 season-opening decision to the Wolverines in Ann Arbor. Then on the other side of the schedule, San Diego State played host to the Sun Devils on Senior Day and fell, 9-3.
- As for the other side of the bracket, San Diego State has faced every team at least once. SDSU nearly pulled the upset of UCLA, falling, 6-5, at the UCI Invitational. The Bruins' quarterfinal foe, UC San Diego, has shared the pool with the Aztecs once and it took the Tritons two sudden-victory overtimes to defeat their crosstown rivals, 6-5. Stanford is also a one-time foe, defeating SDSU at Avery Aquatics Center, 14-5. Lastly, San Diego State fell to UC Santa Barbara twice, both by one-goal margins. SDSU dropped a 9-8 decision to the Gauchos at the Michigan Invite before losing, 7-6, in overtime at the UCI Invite.
- San Diego State finds itself in a familiar place entering this week's action ... the road. Through 34 outings, the Aztecs have played 23 of their games (67.6 percent) away from Aztec Aquaplex. In road/neutral games, SDSU is 11-12 overall, but 5-2 in its last seven. In fact, the Aztecs opened the 2016 season by playing their first 15 games at road/neutral sites and posting a record of 6-9.
- The Aztecs have matched their season-long winning streak of three games and are playing their best water polo of the season. In their last 16 games, San Diego State has gone 11-5, which is a drastic change from its first 16 games when they went 7-9. SDSU's recent late-season surge has propelled it to a tie for 13th nationally in the most recent top-25 poll, which was released on Wednesday.