The Long Beach State men’s water polo team will take its five-game winning streak into matchups with two of the top teams in the country. They face No. 2 Stanford on Saturday and No. 4 California on the road on Sunday.
It will be the only visit to Palo Alto or Berkeley this season for LBSU (15-3, 4-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation).
Head coach Gavin Arroyo said that Stanford (18-3, 4-1 MPSF) and Cal (19-3, 3-1 MPSF) are tougher opponents than the other teams in the conference.
“In terms of differences, there’s the obvious: the talent,” Arroyo said. “But there’s also a mentality and a confidence that those teams bring; they’ll expose you in moments of doubt.”
In Stanford’s last outing, it crushed Pepperdine 13-4. Junior driver Bret Bonanni scored four goals for the Cardinal and has accumulated 235 goals throughout his collegiate career.
Bonanni, a Huntington Beach native, is one of the top-10 scoring leaders in MPSF history. However, the 49ers think they have an inside track on containing him.
“We got Nolan [McConnell] who was [Bonanni’s] teammate on the Senior National team,” Arroyo said. “We’re going to play our game from an X’s and O’s standpoint. It’s just about being more aware of [Bonanni’s] tendencies and his decision-making process to make adjustments.”
LBSU defender Zacchary Kappos has netted 44 goals in 20 games played, and McConnell has 32 goals this season.
With hopes of making the NCAA Tournament in San Diego, LBSU would need to either win the MPSF Championships, which will be hosted at The Beach in three weeks, or have the best record in the conference once the season ends.
For the 49ers to play top-ranked Stanford one day, then face a tough Cal team the day after, is a tall order. But Arroyo sees something positive coming out of this weekend.
“It’s a good weekend in terms of there isn’t a lot of turn-around time to either celebrate or feel sorry for yourself,” Arroyo said.
Senior attacker Milos Vrzic is looking to gain some measure of redemption after almost sweeping the Northern California foes in 2012.
“After that, we realized that we can do it, and that year we lost two or three seniors,” Vrzic said. “At that moment, when you beat Cal and then play Stanford, who we almost beat, but they beat us in the last 30-40 seconds… you’re excited.”
Vrzic said that his team’s mindset needs to be the same this weekend as it was the last time the 49ers played the Northern California teams.
“We don’t have anything to lose,” senior attacker Milos Vrzic said. “We just have to go for it, and we have be hungry to beat them. We can’t just be satisfied with fifth place.”