SAN DIEGO - The No. 21-ranked San Diego State water polo team opens the 2026 season with four games at the Titan Invitational in Fullerton, Calif., from January 16-17 at Titan Aquatics Complex in Fullerton, Calif.
Up First
No. 21 San Diego State (0-0) vs. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (0-0)
Friday, January 16 | 11 a.m. PT | Titan Aquatics Center | Fullerton, Calif.
No. 21 San Diego State (0-0) vs. No. 6 Long Beach State (0-0)
Friday, January 16 | 3 p.m. PT | Titan Aquatics Center | Fullerton, Calif.
No. 21 San Diego State (0-0) vs. Biola (0-0)
Saturday, January 17 | 3 p.m. PT | Titan Aquatics Center | Fullerton, Calif.
No. 21 San Diego State (0-0) at Cal State Fullerton (0-0)
Saturday, January 17 | 7 p.m. PT | Titan Aquatics Center | Fullerton, Calif.
Live Stats are available for all games & fee-based streaming is available for the Cal State Fullerton game
Aztecs Notes
The San Diego State water polo team opens the 2026 season four games at the Titan Invitational in Fullerton, Calif., from January 16-17. They will be among 14 away games in the team’s first 15 contests. The outlier is a January 24 match-up at the Aquaplex against preseason No. 2 Southern California.
San Diego State is ranked No. 21 in the CWPA Preseason Poll. It is the 24th consecutive season the Aztecs have been among the top 25 in the poll. Among preseason top 25 teams, SDSU will play at least 13 games, with opponents at the Triton Invitational yet to be announced.
Heading into its 32nd year of competition, the Aztecs will start the campaign at the Titan Invitational in Fullerton, Calif., for the second time in three years. It marks the 11th straight year the team has opened its season on the road and 24th time in 32 seasons that SDSU starts its season away from the Aquaplex.
San Diego State will compete at the Titan Invitational for the second time in the last three years, and the second time overall. In 2024, then No. 23-ranked SDSU, defeated Cal State Monterey Bay (20-8) and host Cal State Fullerton (14-9) before falling to No. 1 Southern California 18-7 in the inaugural Titan Invitational.
In season openers, SDSU has an overall record of 21-10. In openers away from the Aquaplex, the Aztecs are 14-9, while at home they boast a 7-1 mark in season openers.
San Diego State will play all but four games of its 2026 season in the state of California. The lone trip out of state is to compete in Tempe, Ariz. (Feb. 7-8) at the ASU Invitational. In its 13 years in the GCC, SDSU has played all its regular-season games in the state of California just three times (2015, 2022 & 2023).
After guiding the Aztec to a 32-30 record in her two seasons as the full-time head coach, Dana Ochsner enters her fourth season leading San Diego State after serving as the interim head coach for the 2023 campaign.
Since the program’s inception prior to the 1995 season, San Diego State has had just three head coaches: Deena Schmidt (1995-98), Carin Crawford (1999-2022) and Dana Ochsner (2023-present).
Entering its 32nd season of competition, SDSU has an overall record of 610-420 (.592), including a 135-107 (.558) mark in league contests. In 17 of the previous 31 seasons, the program finished ranked in the top 10 nationally, has only finished outside of the top 20 four times and has never finished a season ranked outside the top 25.
Since it joined the Golden Coast Conference (GCC) for the 2014 season, San Diego State has posted a 67-17 (.798) mark in league contests. Among the six original members of the league - Santa Clara, Azusa Pacific, Loyola Marymount, Pacific, Cal Baptist and San Diego State - that are still members, SDSU is one of three programs with a winning league record [also: Pacific - 60-17 (.779) & Loyola Marymount - 57-18 (.760)] and SDSU is the only one of the original six to not have suffered a league season with a losing record.
With three appearances, the Aztecs are tied with Pacific for second most NCAA Tournaments among programs in the Golden Coast Conference. The pair trail only Fresno State and the four NCAA bids it has earned.
In the 12 seasons of women’s water polo in the Golden Coast Conference, San Diego State’s five tournament championship game appearances is tied with Pacific and Fresno State for second most in League history. LMU has appeared in the most tournament championship games with seven. With the 2020 championship canceled, there have been 11 championship games with San Diego State, Fresno State, Pacific and LMU the only teams to have reached the final game of the tournament.
In the 11 years that a champion has been crowned by the GCC, the 2020 season was canceled after the games of March 7, San Diego State has never failed to reach the final day of the tournament and has never finished lower than 4th place.
Among the original six schools in the GCC - Azusa Pacific, Cal Baptist, Loyola Marymount, Pacific, San Diego State, and Santa Clara - the Aztecs are the only program to have finished in the top 4 in every league tournament.
The Aztecs regular-season home opener is scheduled for 1 p.m. PT at the Aquaplex on January 24 against Southern California, with an exhibition against a team of program alumni scheduled for 3 p.m.
San Diego State is picked to finish in fourth place in the GCC coaches’ preseason poll. This marks the third time in the last three years the Aztecs have been predicted to finish fourth.
San Diego State returns its five top scorers from the 2025 season and, overall, 78.0 percent of its tallies (320-of-410), 66.7 percent (53-of-87) of its blocks, 66.4 percent (168-of-253) of its steals, and 52.4 percent (182-of-347) of its assists.