Pepperdine Set to Open MPSF Play against Stanford
10/20/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Water Polo
Oct. 20, 2006
MALIBU, Calif. -
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Fresh off a 2-2, seventh place finish, at last weekend's SoCal Tournament, the Pepperdine water polo team will return to Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool for its first Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) game of the season. The ball is scheduled to drop at noon for the No. 11-ranked Waves and No. 4-ranked Stanford Cardinal.
Pepperdine (10-11, 0-0 MPSF) faced Stanford (9-5, 1-1 MPSF) on just six days ago at the SoCal Tournament with the Cardinal picking up the 7-3 victory by holding the high-powered Waves' 6-on-5 attack in check.
"Stanford put a lot of pressure on us last weekend when we were up a man and we were something like 1-10," noted interim head coach Jack Kocur. "He will have to improve our percentage in 6-on-5 situations Saturday because that will be the key factor in who wins."
With freshman JP MacDonell (Redwood City, Calif.) and his 42 goals leading the team, Pepperdine has started to outgrow its youthfulness and Kocur feels like his team is gelling at the right time to make a run in league play.
"We are starting to get the rookie mistakes out of our system and have started playing like a division I team lately. Saturday's game should be a great match-up of two young teams."
Saturday's contest in the lone game of the week for the Waves who will host UC Irvine on Wednesday afternoon before facing Cal and Pacific in northern California next weekend.
