SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The No. 14 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team is set for its final regular-season matches this weekend, hosting No. 10 Long Beach State on Saturday and No. 4 USC Sunday. The Gauchos will honor their graduating seniors prior to Sunday's game.
 
WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH
Both games will be held at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta. The Gauchos and Beach will get underway at 12 noon on Saturday, while Sunday's game will get underway at 1 p.m. Admission and parking at both games is free and open until the venue's capacity is reached. For fans following from afar, both games will be live on ESPN+ with live stats available through ucsbgauchos.com.
 
LAST TIME OUT
Santa Barbara comes into the weekend looking to snap a four-game losing skid after suffering a 16-8 defeat on the road at UC San Diego last week. The last time the Gauchos faced The Beach, in 2023, they scored a clutch 11-10 victory in Long Beach, which secured the No. 2 seed in last season's Big West Championship. Adam Gyenis scored a hat-trick in that game, with Leo Ohannessian, Finn Genc and Luke Bachler all adding single goals as well.
 
GAUCHOS TO KNOW
Santa Barbara is one of the highest scoring teams in The Big West this season, with three players ranking among the conference's top 10 goal-scorers. Brock Zamanian leads the team with 47 goals, good for fourth in the conference, but he has set up nearly as many scores for his teammates, leading The Big West with 36 assists on the year. Zamanian's 83 total points also top the conference table, with Gyenis behind him in second.
 
The Hungarian Gyenis had a breakout season in 2023 and has continued to be a key piece of the Gaucho attack in 2024, racking up 42 goals — tied for eighth-most in the conference — and 32 assists — tied for third — on the season. Over Santa Barbara's first four Big West contests, Gyenis has contributed to more goals (13) than any other Gaucho, scoring six himself and assisting seven.
 
Dom Brown also has six goals in conference play for the Blue and Gold, having settled into the starting center role in his first collegiate campaign. On the year, the redshirt freshman has 41 goals, tying him for the 10^th most among all Big West players. He is also plenty capable of getting his opponents into foul trouble, having drawn 62 ejections in 24 games, an average of just over two and a half per contest.
 
Another rookie making his mark for the Gauchos is Danilo Dragovic, whose 32 assists are tied for third in The Big West and whose 66 total points are tied for seventh in the conference. The true freshman has five goals and three helpers in conference play and is the only non-goalkeeper in the conference's top five for steals, with 33 on the year.
 
SCOUTING THE BEACH
Long Beach State (15-9, 2-2 Big West) is the only thing between the Gauchos and the No. 4 seed for The Big West Championship later this month, with both sides playing their final conference game on Saturday. The Beach has won its last two Big West contests, defeating UC San Diego and Cal State Fullerton at home, but they lost their lone conference road game at UC Davis back in October.
 
The Beach is the highest-scoring team in the conference and also has three players in The Big West's top 10 for goals this year: Gabi Acosta, Corbin Stanley and Evan Cain. The freshman Acosta is the team's leading scorer and even earned a spot on the 2025 Cutino Award Watch List — the Heisman of college water polo — earlier this season. With 48 goals, the rookie center was also named Big West Player of the Week in September.
 
Acosta has had four four-goal games this season, but Stanley owns the Beach's largest single-game haul of the season, with six. His 41 goals are tied for 10^th in the conference, along with Cain. The senior attacker Cain is in fact Long Beach State's top active goal-scorer for his career, with 169 over the last four seasons.
 
SCOUTING THE TROJANS
USC (17-4, 2-3 MPSF) is looking to bounce back from just its fourth loss of the season on Sunday, which will be the Trojans' final non-conference contest of the year. Last week, USC fell to a Stanford team they were tied at No. 2 in the rankings with, but did get an overtime win over No. 7 California. The defeat against the Cardinal was the Trojans' first loss in a true road game this season.
 
Two Trojans to watch are Max Miller and Robert Lopez Duart, both of whom were named to the 2025 Cutino Award Watch List earlier this year. Miller is in his fifth year at USC and has 39 goals so far this season from the center position. The last time the Gauchos and Trojans met, Miller scored and assisted.
 
The only Trojan with more goals than Miller this season is Long Beach State transfer Lopez Duart, who has 45. The former Beach man has also added a team-high 24 assists on the year, but the Gauchos will be looking to repeat their defense of him from 2023. When Santa Barbara visited Long Beach last season, they held Lopez Duart to just one assist and no goals on eight shots.
 
UP NEXT
Next up for the Gauchos is a trip to Davis for The Big West Championship, Nov. 22-24. Seedings for the tournament will be determined once all regular-season conference games are complete. Check ucsbgauchos.com for the most up-to-date schedule information.