SAN DIEGO - San Diego State enters this weekend’s play ranked No. 13 in the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) national poll and plays a pair of games in the central valley against Fresno Pacific on Saturday at 5 p.m. PT and then wraps up its Golden Coast Conference (GCC) regular-season slate at No. 13 Fresno State at 1 p.m. PT on Sunday.
Aztecs Notes
The Aztecs are ranked No. 13 in the CWPA poll, tied with Fresno State and UC San Diego, after spending the past seven weeks at No. 19. SDSU has been ranked in the top 25 in each of the organization’s nine weekly and preseason polls.
San Diego State No. 13 ranking in this week’s CWPA national poll is the highest the program has achieved since it was No. 11 in the April 12, 2017, poll. It’s the third time, since that date, that SDSU has been tied at No. 13: January 13, 2018, and April 21, 2021, polls.
Mimi Stoupas (Jr., CTR, Melbourne, Australia) was named the GCC Player of the Week for the week ending on March 15. She is the only player in the league to win the award twice this season, and in leading the Aztecs to a 3-1 record at the Aztec Invitational, she scored 10 goals, drew 10 exclusions, had five steals and a block. It’s her second player of the week honor this year and the third of her career.
At last week’s Aztec Invitational, San Diego State went 3-1 and improved its record in the event to 50-21 emerged from it with a .500-plus record for the 16th time in its 18 iterations.
The Aztecs have never lost to Fresno Pacific (FPU) in six previous meetings, which includes a 2-0 mark at the Sunbirds home pool. The teams last played in 2017 in a game at Fresno Pacific. In the 14-9 victory for the Scarlet and Black, Caroline Israels led the team with five goals and Makena Magro totaled three assists. In the series, the Aztecs have averaged 19 goals a game while limiting the Sunbirds to just over four. The Aztecs have held FPU to single digit goals in each of its six previous encounters. FPU has a 2-12 record and will play three Western Water Polo Association games, before hosting the Aztecs on Saturday.
San Diego State trails in its series with Fresno State, 3-9, which includes one win, a 9-7 victory in 2019, in four games in the Bulldogs pool. Fresno State has emerged the victor in each of the last eight meetings. The teams last played at Aztec Aquaplex on March 29, 2025, a 15-9 defeat for the home team. Sydney Gish (Sr., ATT, Clovis, Calif.), Shannon Murphy (Sr., ATT, Orinda, Calif.), and Claudia Valdes (Sr., ATT, Madrid, Spain) each scored twice and Ava Ratajczak made five stops for SDSU.
With its 19-6 win against Azusa Pacific on March 5, the Aztecs secured an unprecedented 13th straight GCC campaign with a winning league record. No other program, among the original six GCC programs (Santa Clara, Azusa Pacific, Loyola Marymount, Pacific, Cal Baptist and San Diego State) can make that claim.
Senior attacker Claudia Valdes (Sr., ATT, Madrid, Spain) was named Golden Coast Conference (GCC) Player of the Week on February 19. She posted game highs in goals (4), assists (5), points (9) and steals (2). She completed a hat trick, her sixth of the season, with 4:13 to play in the first half, totaled four total goals for the second straight game and for third time in 14 contests this year. The five assists were her second most in a game this season and nine points match her career high. It is Valdes’ second GCC Player of the Week honor in her college career and the second for an Aztec.
Junior two-meter Mimi Stoupas was named the initial 2026 Golden Coast Conference (GCC) Player of the Week. At the season opening Titan Invitational, Stoupas scored 19 goals, drew 12 exclusions, had nine steals and shot a team-leading 67.9 percent (19-of-28) with two blocks and an assist. It is Stoupas’ third GCC Player of the Week honor in her college career.
Mimi Stoupas (Jr., CTR, Melbourne, Australia) and Ioanna Petiki (Fr., ATT, Stuttgart, Germany), earned the ultimate honor in representing their country on an international stage. The pair competed at the FISA World University Games in Duisburg, Germany over the summer. Petiki’s German squad won the gold medal as she scored a pair of power play goals to go along with three steals and a block across six games. Stoupas scored nine times, tied for third most on the team and her four tallies from in front of the goal led the team, which finished in sixth place.
With her first of four goals against UC Santa Barbara (2-7-26), Sydney Gish (Sr., ATT, Clovis, Calif.) passed the 100-goal milestone and enters the weekend’s competitions with 127 career tallies.
With her first save against No. 6 Arizona State (2-8-26), Tiaare Ahovelo (Sr., GK, Auckland, New Zealand) became the seventh player in the 32 seasons of Aztecs water polo to reach the 500-save plateau. She enters the weekend games with 523 for her career, No. 6 on the program’s all-time saves list and is 21 away from equaling No. 5 Ashley Zabel’s (2001-04) and her 544 career saves.
Claudia Valdes (Sr., ATT, Madrid, Spain) enters the weekend with 177 career assists good for No. 4 on the program’s career list and is three from tying Sarah Brady (2008-11) for No. 3 in program history. In addition, Valdes passed the 200-goal milestone vs. Biola (1-17-26), sits in fifth place on the San Diego State career goals list with 236 and is seven from No. 4 Caroline Israels’ (2014-17) career 242 tallies.
Mimi Stoupas (Jr., CTR, Melbourne, Australia) has drawn 174 exclusions in her Aztec career and sits at No. 9 on the program’s career list. She enters the weekend five from equaling Larisa Baltgalvis (1997-00) at No. 8, who drew 179 exclusions wearing the Scarlet and Black.
Dana Ochsner is in her fourth season leading San Diego State after serving as the interim head coach for the 2023 campaign. She has a 58-57 record entering the weekend’s games.
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). All three coaches have a winning record: Deena Schmidt (91-42), Carin Crawford (475-329) and Dana Ochsner (58-57).
In its now 32nd season of competition, San Diego State has an overall record of 622-426 (.594), including a 133-108 (.555) 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 71-18 (.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 entering this year [also: Pacific - 60-17 (.779) & Loyola Marymount - 58-18 (.763)] 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 are tied with Pacific and Fresno State for second most in GCC 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.
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.