SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The No. 19 UC Santa Barbara Women's Water Polo team (15-11, 1-4 Big West) plays its final home game of the season on Saturday, hosting No. 22 CSUN (16-11, 1-5 Big West) for Senior Day. The game is a pivotal matchup for both teams in terms of seeding for The Big West Championship; the winner is guaranteed to finish no lower than sixth in the conference. A win for the Gauchos would keep them in contention to finish as high as fourth, which would keep them away from Hawai'i, Long Beach State and UC Irvine in the first round.
 
UC Santa Barbara will honor their eight graduating student-athletes — Ava Donleavy, Juju Amaral, Jojo Scheer, Christina Mullane, Imani Clemons, Aidan Flynn, Cami Mras and Annie Kuester — following the match.
 
LAST TIME OUT
The Gauchos come into the weekend with momentum on their side, having won both of their games last weekend. They took care of business against Concordia Irvine last Friday, 14-6, then earned their first Big West win of the season by defeating Cal State Fullerton, 11-8, in Fullerton. Donleavy had a great day in goal against the Golden Eagles, making 14 saves, and Mullane played Titan slayer in Fullerton on Saturday, scoring a career-high four goals and adding an assist. Kuester also stayed hot, recording back-to-back hat-tricks in the two games.
 
SCOUTING THE MATADORS
CSUN's one Big West win this season also came against Cal State Fullerton, a 12-6 victory two weekends ago. The Matadors' last game was a 19-12 defeat to UC San Diego at home. They will be looking for a better performance on Saturday than in their last road game, when they managed just two goals at Long Beach State.
 
If there are going to be goals for the Matadors, there is little mystery where they will be coming from. Senior center Dorottya Telek leads The Big West with 98 goals on the season, and fellow Hungarian and senior Anna Pal has 52 more, the two of them accounting for 40.3 percent of their team's scores this season. Pal also leads The Big West with 64 assists, making the two of them the conference's top two points scorers.
 
Telek is also frequently involved on the defensive end, recording a conference-best 18 field blocks this season. Those blocks have provided a helping hand to sophomore goalie Erika Staine, who has been solid in her second season. Staine ranks in the middle of the pack among Big West netminders, coming into the weekend sixth in the conference for both save percentage (.411) and goals-against average (11.64). For comparison, Santa Barbara's Donleavy ranks second in both stats, at .474 and 9.37 respectively.
 
WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH
The Gauchos and Matadors will hit the water at 12 noon from Santa Barbara High School. Admission to the game is free and open until the venue's capacity is reached. Fans can also catch all the action from wherever they are by watching live on ESPN+ or by following along with live stats at ucsbgauchos.com/WWPLiveStats.