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April 16, 2003
SAN DIEGO -
The seventh-ranked San Diego State women's water polo team closes out regular-season play and celebrates senior day by hosting No. 14 UC San Diego in the second annual Harper Cup match on Saturday at the Ray and Joan Kroc Center.
The 5 p.m. game marks the home finale for seven Aztec seniors - co-captain Casey Finnegan, Jackie Lopez, co-captain Heidi Matsumoto, Ashleigh May, Amber Prestegard, Becky Sensney, and Brenna Wylie. The group includes members of fifth-year head coach Carin Crawford's first recruiting class at SDSU and will be honored prior to the start of the game.
SDSU won the inaugural Harper Cup match, 8-7, over UC San Diego in 2002. May scored the game-winner with just three seconds remaining in regulation. The cup is named in honor of current UCSD men's water polo coach Denny Harper, who previously coached the UCSD women's team to five national titles. Harper, a 1978 graduate of San Diego State, coached both Aztec coach Carin Crawford and Triton coach Larry Sanders at UCSD.
Not only cross-town foes, the Aztecs (17-11 overall) and Tritons are familiar opponents this season, having played twice already with SDSU capturing both decisions including an 8-4 win at UCSD's Canyonview Pool on March 1. The teams will be playing for the second time in a week after SDSU claimed a 9-6 triumph in first-day competition at the Long Beach State Tournament on April 12.
The Update
SDSU played its final tournament tune-up before the MPSF Championship at the Long Beach State Tournament and claimed third place. in the 12-team event. The Aztecs swept through their first-day competition by a combined score of 36-19 in winning the Group C bracket. But SDSU ran into a pair of top-four opponents in Sunday's winners pairing and dropped a 10-5 decision to No. 3 USC and a 12-11 overtime result to No. 4 Long Beach State.
Senior utility Casey Finnegan (Fresno, Calif./Clovis West HS) was rewarded for her stellar play with selection to the all-tournament team. Finnegan scored 10 goals in the five games, including game-highs of four scores in the 12-8 win over No. 20 Cal Baptist, three tallies in the 9-6 defeat of No. 14 UC San Diego and two goals in the overtime loss to No. 4 Long Beach State.
Also turning in impressive offensive performances were senior utility Amber Prestegard and junior 2-meter Holly Hartzell, both of whom also scored 10 goals in the five games. Junior driver Sandy Onweller, who came into the weekend with 11 goals on the season, scored six times over the five games and now ranks fourth on the with 17 scores.
Junior goalie Ashley Zabel turned in an effort baseball ironman Cal Ripken would be proud of, starting all five games and playing a total of 16 quarters in two days. She made a total of 28 saves for the weekend.
Saturday's middle-game 15-5 win over CSU Bakersfield was the 100th victory of head coach Carin Crawford's career at SDSU. The UCSD victory in Saturday's tripleheader finale made Crawford a perfect 5-for-5 in reaching 17 wins in a season at SDSU.
Aztec 2-Meter Shots
SDSU heads toward the April 25-27 MPSF Championship at Stanford's Avery Aquatic Complex as the likely seventh seed. SDSU finished the conference regular season with a record of 4-6 and tied with No. 7 Hawai'i (10-12/4-6), but the Rainbow Wahine would earn the sixth seed in the tournament by virtue of their head-to-head 4-3 win over the Aztecs. No. 11 UC Santa Barbara (15-11/3-5) is still alive to claim sixth place outright but has to play No. 4 Long Beach State and No. 1 UCLA, and No. 10 San Jose (15-13/3-6) could still figure into forcing a tiebreaker issue for sixth place and the sixth seed.
With 10 goals in five games in Long Beach, senior utility Amber Prestegard has moved closer to the program's all-time goals record. With 49 goals this season, Prestegard now has 225 for her career and is within 10 scores of Larisa Baltgalvis' record total (235). With the UCSD game still remaining and the MPSF tourney on the horizon, a similar effort could prove to be a recordbreaker.
The Aztecs moved up one spot and into a seventh-place tie with Hawai'i in the latest USWPA Coaches' Poll on April 16. SDSU has been ranked no lower than eighth while reaching a season-high of sixth from March 12-April 9.
Scouting UC San Diego
The Tritons won four of five games at the Long Beach State Tournament, with the only loss coming to the Aztecs. That performance came on the heels of dropping 6-of-9 previous contests.
Against the Aztecs this season, goalkeeper Kaitlin Foe made six saves and allowed eight goals in the first meeting before yielding nine goals against just three saves in last Saturday's game. Senior 2-meter Elizabeth Keesey scored three goals in the loss to SDSU at the Long Beach tournament.
Head Coach Carin Crawford
In her fifth season leading the Aztec program, Crawford has guided the Aztecs to four straight top-eight national finishes and seasons of 18 or more wins while compiling an overall record of 101-77. She has coached six All-Americans, seven all-MPSF performers, 10 all-MPSF academic selections and 13 AWPCA all-academic honorees.
2003 Aztec Women's Water Polo Stat Leaders
Goals Goals
No Player GP-GS Att Scored Ast Stl Saves
1 A. Zabel 23-20 2 0 12 16 157
1A S. Daseler 14-8 1 0 6 12 80
5 C. Finnegan 26-26 119 39 17 62 1
6 D. Delgado 27-17 52 16 18 25 2
9 S. Onweller 27-12 62 17 13 9 4
10 Prestegard 27-27 122 49 33 15 0
14 H. Hartzell 27-27 121 57 17 44 1
MPSF Standings (as of Apr. 14)
School MPSF Pct. Overall Pct.
1. USC 9-1 .900 21-3 .875
2. Stanford 8-1 .889 16-2 .889
3. UCLA 7-2 .778 18-3 .842
4. L.B. State 6-2 .750 21-6 .778
5. California 5-4 .556 12-7 .632
6. SDSU 4-6 .400 14-9 .609
Hawai'i 4-6 .400 10-12 .454
8. S.J. State 3-6 .333 15-13 .536
9. UCSB 3-5 .375 15-11 .577
10. UC Irvine 1-8 .111 18-19 .486
11. Pacific 0-9 .000 7-19 .269
AWPCA Top 20 (Apr. 16)
1. UCLA
2. USC
3. Stanford
4. Long Beach State
5. California
6. Loyola Marymount
7. Hawai'i
San Diego State
9. Michigan
10. San Jose State
11. UC Santa Barbara
12. UC Davis
13. Indiana
14. Princeton
UC San Diego
16. Hartwick
17. Brown
18. UC Irvine
19. Arizona State
20. CSU Northridge
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