DAVIS, Calif. — The No. 14 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team has earned the No. 4 seed for this year's Big West Championship and will open their tournament against No. 5 seed Long Beach State on Friday in Davis. The Beach checks in at No. 8 in this week's national rankings, but the Gauchos earned the upset when these two teams met earlier this month in Santa Barbara. Long Beach State was knocked out in the first round of last year's Big West Championship, while Santa Barbara reached the championship match.
 
WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH
The Gauchos and Beach will hit the water from the Schaal Aquatics Center in Davis at noon on Friday. Tickets are on sale through ucdavisaggies.com now. Fans can also follow along from afar with live stats, available through ucsbgauchos.com.
 
REGULAR SEASON RECAP
Santa Barbara secured the No. 4 seed for this year's Big West Championship with a dramatic come-from-behind victory in the penultimate game of the season over the Beach, 15-13 in overtime. The Gauchos finished the year with a 15-11 overall record, going 2-3 in Big West play. Along with their comeback win over Long Beach State, Santa Barbara also has highlight wins over then-No. 15 LMU, 16-12, and then-No. 15 Santa Clara, 9-8, on their non-conference resume.
 
Some of the Gauchos' losses also gave Head Coach Wolf Wigo and Santa Barbara fans reason to be optimistic. In a three-game stretch, the squad played a one-goal loss against UC Davis, a two-goal loss against undefeated Fordham and a one-goal loss to UC Irvine. In that final match, the Gauchos pushed the No. 1 seed Anteaters to three overtimes in Irvine. There were periods in each of those games that Wigo highlighted as the level of play his squad would need to win postseason contests.  
 
GAUCHOS TO KNOW
Adam Gyenis finished the year on a high note, being named The Big West Player of the Week after the Gauchos' final weekend of action. The Hungarian was Santa Barbara's top scorer in Big West games this year, with six goals and seven assists in the five conference contests, including three scores and four helpers against Long Beach State. In last year's conference tournament, Gyenis had eight goals for the Blue and Gold, with six of them and an assist coming in the semifinal.
 
Gyenis is one of four Gauchos in the 40-goal club this season, with 47 plus 37 assists to his name. The others are Luke Bachler (42), Dom Brown (45) and team leader Brock Zamanian, whose 51 are fourth-most in The Big West. Zamanian also has a team-best 39 assists, giving him a conference-best 90 points coming into the weekend. Gyenis' 84 points rank second, and freshman Danilo Dragovic ranks eighth with 69 (34 goals and 35 assists).
 
At the defensive end of the pool, the Gauchos will look for goalkeeper Levi Lentin to once again be a dominant force in The Big West Championship; Lentin set what was a career high with 14 saves in last year's semifinal against UC San Diego. He eclipsed that mark with 17 saves in this year's overtime contest at UC Irvine, and the Gauchos' regular-season meeting with the Beach ranks as his second-best outing (statistically) of the year, seeing him make 14 stops.
 
SCOUTING THE BEACH
No. 8 Long Beach State (17-10, 2-3 Big West) comes into the weekend as the No. 5 seed after falling to the Gauchos in their regular-season meeting. The Beach have played two games since that defeat, posting an 18-7 win over LMU and a 15-6 non-conference win over UC Irvine last week. Those two victories moved Long Beach State up to No. 8 in the national rankings this week, and their rivalry win over the Anteaters goes nicely on their resume alongside a 12-9 win over California in Berkeley and a 12-10 non-conference win over UC Davis from earlier in the year.
 
Freshman center Corbin Stanley scored hat-tricks in each of Long Beach's last two regular season games to claim the final Big West Player of the Week award of the year and bring his goal total up to 47, the second most on the team. The only Beach player with more goals is fellow center Gabi Acosta, who leads the conference with 58 and scored five against the Gauchos in the regular season. The only other member of Long Beach's 40-goal club is attacker Evan Cain, with 46, just cracking the conference's top 10 list. Cain had four goals against the Gauchos in their regular-season meeting.
 
In goal, the Beach have two starting-quality options in Liam Ward and Aaron Wilson. Ward drew the starting assignment when Long Beach visited Santa Barbara this season and made 12 saves but also gave up the 15 goals. Wilson, an All-America Honorable Mention at UC Davis last season, drew the start in the Beach's most recent game and made eight saves to bring his season total up to a round 150. Earlier in the year against Wagner, Wilson made 17 stops.
 
UP NEXT
The winner of Friday's match will advance to The Big West Semifinal against No. 1 seed UC Irvine on Saturday at noon.