DAVIS, Calif. — The UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team is set for their first Big West road trip this weekend, as the Gauchos will visit UC Davis on Saturday. The Gauchos will stay in Northern California and take on old Golden Coast Conference rivals Pacific on Sunday. After the weekend, UC Santa Barbara will return home and host Princeton on Tuesday.
 
WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH
The Gauchos' weekend begins at 1 p.m. on Saturday, October 14 from UC Davis' Schaal Aquatics Center. The game against the Aggies will not be broadcast, but live stats will be available through ucsbgauchos.com. UC Santa Barbara will hit the water at noon on Sunday, October 15 for their matchup with Pacific at the Douglass M. Eberhart Aquatics Center in Stockton. That match will be live on ESPN+ with live stats available through ucsbgauchos.com.
 
When the Gauchos return to Santa Barbara to host Princeton on Tuesday, it will be from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, with a start time of 11 a.m. Only fans on the pass list will be admitted to the venue, but fans can follow along from anywhere by watching the ESPN+ broadcast and with live stats available through ucsbgauchos.com.
 
SCOUTING THE AGGIES (13-6, 1-0 Big West)
UC Davis was picked to finish first in The Big West Preseason Coaches' Poll and is the highest-ranked team in the conference in both the CWPA and ACWPC polls, at No. 7 and No. 6 respectively. The Aggies won their conference opener over then-No. 8 Long Beach State last weekend, 9-8, and defeated then-No. 13 Pacific, 16-10, in their last game for their sixth consecutive win.
 
Aggies have won the last two Big West Player of the Week awards, with Max Stryker taking home the most recent honor. Logan Anderson won the award the week before Stryker.
 
Stryker only has nine goals on the season but leads the conference in assists with 39. Anderson is third on the team with 29 goals and second with 22 assists. UC Davis' leading scorer is Aleix Aznar Beltran, who has 32 on the season, as well as 21 assists. In goal, Aaron Wilson ranks second in The Big West with 153 saves on the season.
 
SCOUTING THE PACIFIC TIGERS (9-4, 0-0 WCC)
Pacific and UC Santa Barbara used to be GCC conference-mates, but the Tigers have moved to the West Coast Conference from 2023 on. The last time the Gauchos and Tigers met, Santa Barbara pulled out a 14-13 overtime victory at Campus Pool.
 
Pacific will play their first WCC conference game on Saturday, taking on California Baptist before hosting the Gauchos. The Tigers were ranked as high as No. 5 in the nation earlier this season but have lost their last four games against Division-I opponents, falling to UCLA, then-No. 1 Cal, USC and UC Davis in that order.
 
Pacific was picked atop the WCC Preseason Poll, and senior Aleksa Sisakovic earned the program's first WCC Player of the Week award earlier this season. Sisakovic ranks fourth on the team for goals currently, with 22. Junior Gil Gvishi leads the Tigers with 31 goals on the season.
 
SCOUTING THE PRINCETON TIGERS (16-2, 5-0 NWPC)
Princeton is the best water polo team on the East Coast this year, and it's not close. The Tigers are the highest nationally ranked team from outside California in both the CWPA and ACWPC polls, at No. 6 and No. 7 respectively. They only have two losses this season, against Stanford on September 23 and Pepperdine a day later. Both of those programs have ranked as high as No. 4 in the country this year.
 
The Tigers have cruised through their first five Northeast Water Polo Conference games in the last two weeks, taking down then-No. 20 Harvard, MIT, then-No. 18 Brown, LIU and Iona. They allowed double-digit goals in only one of those games, their 17-11 win over the Crimson, and have outscored conference opponents 78-44. Princeton begins a two-week California road trip on Sunday at UC Irvine before taking on the Gauchos on Tuesday.
 
The Tigers have a phenomenal rookie goalkeeper in Kristof Kovacs, who has been named NWPC Defensive Player of the Week and Rookie of the Week three times each this season, including after a 20-save performance against Iona. It was only the 11^th 20-save game in Princeton history. Junior Roko Pozaric also has three weekly awards to his name, being named NWPC Player of the Week thrice, most recently on October 3. The three other Tigers to earn weekly conference honors are Vladan Mitrovic (Player), West Temkin (Defensive) and Finn LeSieur (Rookie).