Cal Water Polo: Bears Earn No. 2 NCAA Seed Despite Losing Twice at MPSF Tourney

Golden Bears will pursue their first national title since 2016 at the Dec. 2-5 event.

Winning the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation regular-season title provided the Cal men’s water polo team the edge it needed to earn a spot in the Dec. 2-5 NCAA Championships at UCLA.

The Bears, ranked No. 1 in the country last week, were named to the field as a No. 2 seed despite losing twice last weekend at the MPSF tournament at Stanford.

Cal, which entered last week at 20-2, riding a six-game win streak and seeded No. 1, lost 12-11 in overtime to Stanford in the MPSF semifinals Saturday, then fell 11-9 to USC in the third-place game on Sunday.

The Bears were included in the NCAA field nonetheless, based on their 20-4 season record and their regular-season title in what is by far the nation's top conference. They closed out the MPSF schedule with a 16-9 rout of UCLA a week ago.

Cal , led by two-time MPSF Player of the Year Nikolaos Papanikolaou, will play its first game Dec. 4 against an opponent to be determined.

The Bears are making their 31st appearance at the NCAAs and their second in a row. Cal has won the most national titles in history with 14 crowns, most recently in 2016.

USC (17-2) earned the No. 1 seed, joining Cal as automatic entries into the semifinals.

UCLA (19-3) won the MPSF tournament title on Sunday, beating Stanford 11-10. Stanford missed out on a spot in the NCAAs and the selection committee did not give the Bruins a national seed, despite their win Sunday.

UCLA will play a first-round on Dec. 2 against the winner of a play-in matchup this Saturday between Princeton (25-7) and Fordham (24-6). The winner of that game advances to face Cal two days later.

USC awaits the winner of the first-round matchup of Long Beach State (22-5) and UC Davis (18-8).

NCAA

Cover photo of Nikolaos Papanikolaou by Catharyn Hayne, KLC fotos

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo