St. Francis Brooklyn Water Polo Seeks Historic NCAA Tournament Win

When the St. Francis Brooklyn men’s water polo team plays the University of California San Diego (UCSD) this afternoon at Stanford University, not only is the final berth in the 2013 NCAA Men’s Water Polo Championship at stake, but the Terriers — the NCAA’s smallest Division 1 water polo program —have a shot at being the first Eastern team to win an opening round match in the NCAA championship.

According to Ed Haas, Director of Communications for the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA), Eastern water polo’s governing body, no team from the East has ever drawn first blood in the NCAA tournament. The closest any east coast squad has come to advancing was in the 2004 NCAA Water Polo semifinals, when second-seed UCLA narrowly defeated third-seed Princeton 7-5 in overtime.

As a result of the NCAA’s new play-in format, No. 5 seed St. Francis (22-10) will face No. 4 UCSD (14-13) at 4 p.m. EST, with the winner advancing to the championship bracket on Saturday against the top-seeded Trojans of USC (26-4). The third seed is host Stanford (21-5), which will participate in the second-play-in game today against No. 6 seed Whittier College (19-12) with the winner to play No. 2 seed Pacific (22-4). The semifinal winners will play for the NCAA championship at 6 p.m. on Sunday.

If they prevail today the Terriers will lay claim to another notable distinction: two straight NCAA tournament victories.

A 14-8 win over Air Force in last year’s NCAA Championship third-place match — the Terriers’ first ever tournament victory — put St. Francis in rarified company as one of a handful of Eastern programs that have achieved success at the NCAAs. However, that success is fleeting: in 54 NCAA appearances the East has 30 wins and 113 losses – an underwhelming .265 winning percentage. The Terriers have an equally unimpressive record of one win and five losses in their three previous NCAA tournaments.

According to St. Francis Head Coach Srdjan Mihaljevic, his team’s situation amounts to simple math. “We are looking for another win,” said Mihaljevic, who has pushed all the right buttons in his first year leading the Terriers. “The whole season now fits into a single game.”

A win today will propel St. Francis into its fourth NCAA Final Four and third in the past four years – not coincidently all with senior goalie Igor Mladenovic tending nets. A Saturday match against top-seed USC, seeking to extend their record of consecutive championships to six, will provide Mladenovic with the opportunity to reprise his greatest collegiate performance, a narrow 10-7 loss to USC in the semifinals of the 2010 NCAA tournament.

In a recent interview, USC Head Coach Jovan Vavic vividly recalled his team’s win three years ago over the Terriers.

“A couple of years ago we played [St. Francis] at Cal [University of California at Berkeley] in a very tough match and if it wasn’t for a couple of calls at the end of the game that ended up going in our favor we could have lost that game,” said Vavic, with eight men’s and four women’s NCAA titles arguably American intercollegiate water polo’s most successful coach. “We were a very young team in 2010 and we had an early lead and ended up losing the lead. We were fortunate at the end of the game to get a couple of calls to go in our favor [and] we won the game. But that [St. Francis] team in 2010 was one of the best teams in the nation and very balanced.”

Facing the defending champions in the NCAAs is a daunting prospect for the Terriers, as they already dropped a 13-4 decision to the Trojans back in early October. St. Francis finished strong, closing out their season with seven straight wins while sweeping to the school’s ninth straight Northern Division title and third CWPA championship in four years.

Today’s match-up with UCSD represents another example of the tiny Brooklyn school’s outsized success. Since 1999, the Terriers have competed for more CWPA Championships - eight - than any other Eastern school besides Navy (ten), while capturing four titles: 2005, 2010, 2012 and 2013. Not only is the CWPA Championship the top intercollegiate tournament in the East; the winner is awarded a berth in the NCAA tournament.

In UCSD the Terriers face an opponent that mirrors their own style and success, The Tritons boast multiple attackers who can score complimented by a solid defense. Assessing his opponent, Coach Mihaljevic said “UCSD is a very good, organized, quality team. They are a well-rounded group, nicely balanced on all positions, and what they lack in size, they make up in a relentless effort.”

Like the Terriers, the Tritons have a strong netminder: UCSD goalie Cameron Ravanbach came up big in the WWPA championship, recording 37 saves over two games as UCSD held Santa Clara and UC Davis to four goals in each.

Even thought the two teams are evenly matched in the pool, the Tritons have a huge advantage over the Terriers, who have traveled 3,000 miles for today’s match. Because they arrived in Palo Alto, CA yesterday, St. Francis has had minimal practice time and a relatively short period to recover from their long flight.

Despite this scheduling snafu, Mihaljevic — who has maintained a rigorous training regimen all year —said that his team will be ready to play.

“We'll have our hands full,” continued the Terriers’ coach "but if we bring our game from the Easterns championship weekend [where St. Francis beat Princeton 11-9 to advance to the NCAAs] we'll have a good chance on Thursday.”

Media Note:
Per the NCAA office, neither of the play-in games pitting St. Francis Brooklyn-vs.-UC-San Diego and Stanford-vs.-Whittier will be streamed on Thursday, December 5.  However, semifinals, third place game and championship tilt will be streamed on Saturday-Sunday, December 7-8 at NCAAsports.com