SAN DIEGO – The No. 24 ranked San Diego State water polo team, after completing the Golden Coast Conference (GCC) regular-season slate, is the 4-seed in next weekend's conference championship tournament.
San Diego State hosts the GCC tournament, which runs from Friday, April 28 to Sunday, April 30 at Aztec Aquaplex and will play 5-seed Concordia University Irvine (CUI) at 2 p.m. PT, in the third of four quarterfinal games on Friday.
SDSU, which finished league play with a 4-3 record, defeated Concordia 11-10 in overtime on March 24 at the Golden Eagles pool. Freshman Claudia Valdes tallied a season-high five goals in the game. She scored twice in the final quarter to send the game to overtime and then scored twice again, including the game winner with 1:27 to play to secure the victory.
The Scarlet and Black and Concordia, which completed GCC action with a 3-4 record, have played 11 times, since their first meeting in 2011, with San Diego State taking each of the previous 11 meetings, including all three which have been played at the Aquaplex. In the three games in the series played in San Diego, the Aztecs have outscored the Golden Eagles 35-17, including an 11-6 victory last year.
The winner of the SDSU/CUI game advances to the second semifinal game on Saturday at 4 p.m. PT and will play the winner of the game between 1-seed Fresno State and 8-seed California Baptist. The loser of the Aztecs/Golden Eagles game will play in either the fifth or seventh place game on Saturday at either 10 a.m. or noon PT.
Since joining the GCC at the start of the 2014 campaign, SDSU has never been seeded lower than No. 4 and has finished either first or second in the championship tournament five times, including winning the title in 2016.
Links for live stats and streaming video of all tournament games are available at the GCC website (www.gccwaterpolo.com). In addition, links for the Aztecs games in the tournament will be on the team's schedule page at www.goaztecs.com.