SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The No. 16 UC Santa Barbara Women's Water Polo team is set for its 2024 regular season finale on Thursday, when the Gauchos will host Cal State Fullerton for Senior Night. The Gauchos will celebrate four graduating student-athletes prior to Thursday's game:
Camilla Mackay,
Leigh Lyter,
Mary Beth Heffelfinger and
Drew Halvorson.
WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH
Thursday night's game will get underway at 7 p.m. at Santa Barbara High School. Admission is free and open until the venue's capacity is reached. Fans can also catch the game live on ESPN+ or follow along with live stats available on ucsbgauchos.com. Make sure to arrive early for the Senior Day celebration, which will begin at approximately 6:50 p.m.
LAST TIME OUT
Santa Barbara is returning home after a tough road trip to Hawai'i, one of the best teams in the country. The Gauchos fell, 12-3, in Honolulu, with Lyter,
Christina Mullane and
Emily Ferguson scoring for Santa Barbara.
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE GAUCHOS
While it has not been a dream season for the Gauchos, they can cause plenty of problems for an under-powered Cal State Fullerton offense on Thursday night, as Santa Barbara plays some of the peskiest defense in the country; they are the only team in The Big West with three different players among the conference's top 10 in steals. The Gauchos' leading ball hawk is their defensive backbone, goalkeeper
Madison Walker (38 steals). Walker is one of the conference's top goalies, ranking in the top three for both saves (202) and save percentage (.525). Walker's 8.28 goals-against average ranks fourth in The Big West.
Lyter and
Juju Amaral are the other Gauchos among The Big West's top ball thieves, with 34 steals each. They, along with
Annie Kuester (fifth in The Big West with 10 field blocks), also form a three-pronged attack, each a member of the 30-goal club. Lyter's 37 lead the squad, with Kuester's 35 and Amaral's 33 close behind. Amaral has added 29 assists for a team-high points tally of 62 points on the season. Kuester has 52, and Mullane rounds out the 50-point club for the Gauchos; the Hawai'i transfer has 26 goals to go with 25 assists on the year. Mullane has been the most productive of Santa Barbara's newcomers this year, but
Jojo Scheer and
Isabel Valaika have contributed as well, each managing double-digit goals and assist in their first seasons in Blue and Gold. One more player to watch on Senior Night is Halvorson; the fifth-year Gaucho has already set a new career high for assists with 21 this season, and she is two goals away from a new career high in that category, coming in with 19.
SCOUTING THE TITANS
In just their second year as a program, Cal State Fullerton has already taken strides forward after last year, earning their first Big West victory over CSUN two weekends ago. They will still have one match left to play after taking on the Gauchos, hosting UC Davis on Saturday. While they are improved, the Titans still have one of the weaker offenses and more porous defenses in a very strong Big West, coming into the weekend with a negative 89 goal difference.
For the most part, their offense has flowed through one player: senior center Shyanne Rainey, who has 50 of the Titans' 209 goals this season, ranking sixth in the conference. Junior utility Destiny Hernandez is the only Titan who comes close to Rainey's offensive output, putting up 34 goals and 15 assists for a 49-point season. She and Rainey are the only Fullerton players with more than 20 goals.
On the other end, the Titans' leaky defense has made goalkeeper Annabelle Sherman very busy. While she ranks second in the conference with 213 saves this season, her .466 save percentage is sixth out of eight qualified goalies, and her 12.91 goals-against average is the worst in the conference.
UP NEXT
The Gauchos will travel to the Schaal Aquatics Center in Davis for The Big West Championship next weekend, beginning with the quarterfinal round on Friday, April 26. With seeding still up in the air, Santa Barbara's quarterfinal and opponent have not been determined yet.
