Women's polo gets rematch with CMS to open championships
ORANGE, Calif. – The 2014 SCIAC Women's Water Polo Championships are set to get underway this weekend April 25-27 hosted by Whittier College with all nine SCIAC teams to face off in the conference tournament. The team with the most cumulative points between their regular season win total and tournament finish will be crowned the SCIAC Champion and will receive an automatic berth into the NCAA Championships.
First round action begins on Friday in a battle of unranked teams: La Verne vs. Caltech at 1 p.m. The winner will advance to face top seed No. 1 ranked Pomona-Pitzer at 5:30 p.m. Chapman (9-22 overall, 2-6 SCIAC) which earned the No. 7 seed in the tournament, will play No. 3-seeded Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (15-12 overall, 7-1 SCIAC) at 4 p.m.
Despite the disparity in seeding, Claremont just edged the Panthers 14-13 in 'golden goal' overtime in their regular season meeting in March. Chapman enters the tournament having lost 10 of 12 and will need to snap a six-game losing streak to make a run at the top spots in the SCIAC.
Chapman has been led this season by a trio of goal scorers, junior utility Riley Ford (40 goals), junior driver Emily Holmquist (37 goals) and sophomore driver Miranda Estrella (37 goals). The Panthers' goaltending duo of juniors Kirsten Spicer and Jordan Gilmore had held opponents to an average of less than 10 goals per game with a 9.94 goals-against mark.
The tournament will continue on Saturday beginning at 1 p.m. The finals on Sunday begin at 10 a.m. with the title match starting at 2:30 p.m.
The SCIAC champion will be determined via point system with each team entering the tournament having accumulated points based on the regular season standings. The winner of the weekend's bracket will earn the coveted 10 points towards the overall standings. Second place will earn eight points, third place will earn seven points, etc.
All games for the SCIAC Women's Water Polo Championships will be broadcasted live on www.wcpoets.com. In order to view the games or re-watch them at a later time go to: http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/whittier.portal.
A complete tournament schedule, ticketing information and more can be found at the SCIAC Women's Water Polo Championship website: http://www.wcpoets.com/sports/wwaterpolo/2013-14/files/2014_SCIAC_Championships
by Raquel Rinauro & Doug Aiken
Sports Information Intern & Sports Information Director
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