LA JOLLA, Calif. — The No. 15 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team gets the 2025 season underway with six matches at the Triton Invitational, hosted by UC San Diego, this weekend. The Gauchos will play twice a day for the next three days, beginning by facing George Washington and No. 10 San Jose State on Friday. Saturday brings clashes with La Verne and No. 2 USC, while contests with No. 20 Navy and Pomona-Pitzer will round out the weekend on Sunday.
 
WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH
Tickets for the weekend are available now, and can be purchased by clicking here. There will not be a live stream or live stats for any of the Gauchos' games this weekend, so stay tuned to UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo on social media — @ucsbmwp on Instagram and @UCSBWaterPolo on X/Twitter — For score updates throughout the weekend. Start times for the Gauchos' games are as follows. Santa Barbara is scheduled to take on George Washington at 12:10 p.m. and San Jose State at 5:30 p.m. Friday, La Verne at 10:40 a.m. and USC at 2:40 p.m. Saturday, Navy at 8 a.m. and Pomona-Pitzer at 1:20 p.m. Sunday.
 
2024 IN REVIEW
The Gauchos come into the 2025 season ranked as the No. 15 team in the Collegiate Water Polo Association's national poll after finishing 2024 with a 15-12 record, falling to eventual conference champions Long Beach State in the first round of The Big West Championship. For a second year in a row, it was one of Santa Barbara's highest-scoring seasons on record, with the Gauchos' 376 goals being their fifth-best haul in any season ever. It was even better in terms of goals per game, with their 13.93 average second best in program history.
 
GAUCHOS TO KNOW
Santa Barbara's 2024 offensive onslaught was led by 52-goal-scorer Brock Zamanian, who tallied more combined goals and assists than any Big West player (92). The 2024 All-America Honorable Mention is back to lead the offense again in 2025. Adam Gyenis was not far behind him, with 87 total points last season; Santa Barbara will have to replace the Hungarian in their attack this year. The leading candidate for that role is fellow European Danilo Dragovic, who tallied 70 points on 35 goals and 35 assists as a freshman in 2024. After getting a season of collegiate water polo under his belt, Dragovic got the opportunity to hone his skills against some of the top young talents in the world, representing Montenegro at the U20 World Championship in June.
 
Another hole for the Gauchos to fill in 2025 is at the center position, where Dom Brown is their only 2024 All-American not returning for this season. In his stead, Santa Barbara will look for Kai Ross to continue his promising trajectory. Ross featured in all 27 of the Gauchos' games as a freshman last season and was excellent at earning power plays for Santa Barbara, finishing second on the team in exclusions drawn. If he can turn his goal-scoring output up a notch with more playing time this season, he could join Brown and 2023 Big West Player of the Year Dash McFarland in a growing line of dominant Gaucho centers.
 
Also, Ross will not have to hold down the post by himself, as newcomer William Pezold has the physical stature and eye for goal of a dominant force in the middle himself. A junior utility man, Pezold racked up 82 goals at UC Merced, 41 in each of his two seasons as a Bobcat. He will be licking his lips at a couple of this week's matchups in particular; Pezold scored five goals in a game against Navy last season, three against La Verne and tallied three assists against Pomona-Pitzer. Pezold is also not the only newcomer poised to make an impact for Santa Barbara. Freshman attacker Charlie Johnson joins the Gauchos after an impressive high school career at Loyola High School in Los Angeles, earning All-America Third Team honors after leading the team in goals his senior season.
 
At the other end of the pool, there is perhaps no more nailed-down position than that of Gaucho goalie, where Levi Lentin returns for a third season as first-choice netminder. Now a redshirt senior, Lentin has been an All-Big West Second Team selection each of the last two seasons and is coming off a 2025 campaign in which he led the conference in saves. Behind him is Wyatt Pieretti, who featured in nine games last season, as well as redshirt freshman Haakon Lacy and Finn Byrne, a practice player promoted to the varsity roster for 2025.
 
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
George Washington is coming off a 2024 campaign in which they went 17-9, falling to Navy in their conference semifinals but winning the third-place game against Wagner to enter this year on a win streak. They played just five Californian teams last season, going 2-3 with losses to Santa Clara, San Jose State and Pacific, and the Revolutionaries have never played the Gauchos. For this season, George Washington returns two of their four Mid-Atlantic Water Polo All-Conference selections from last year return in the shape of senior utility Adonis Vlassis and sophomore attacker Antonio Florena. The Revolutionaries will be without their all-conference goalie from last season following his graduation.
 
No. 10 San Jose State finished 2024 with a 17-7 record after being upset by California Baptist in the West Coast Conference Championship game, denying the Spartans a trip to the NCAA Tournament. One of those 17 wins came against the Gauchos in San Jose, 16-13, a second straight win for the Spartans in an all-time series which Santa Barbara leads, 18-13. Mateja Bosic, who tallied three goals and two assists in last season's fixture, was named to the Preseason All-West Coast Conference team, as was goalkeeper Brendon Gyapjas.
 
La Verne will surely not be looking forward to facing the Gauchos on Saturday, as some of Santa Barbara's all-time highest goal totals have come against the Leopards. Over their last five meetings, the Gauchos have out-scored La Verne, 125-24, including a 25-9 win in 2024. That was one of five games against Division I opponents for the Division III Leopards last season, all of which ended in defeat for La Verne. This weekend marks the beginning of a new era for the Leopards, as Robert Echeverria is set to begin his first season as head coach of La Verne Men's Water Polo; he had been serving as interim head coach for both the Leopards' men's and women's programs since January before being given the permanent post in July.
 
No. 2 USC is the biggest test for the Gauchos this weekend, with the Trojans beginning yet another trophy hunt after losing to arch-rivals UCLA in the 2024 National Championship. USC finished with a 23-6 record, including a win over Santa Barbara last October, and placed five players on All-America teams. Three of those All-Americans are back for 2025: goalie Bernando Herzer, driver Robert López Duart and utility Stefan Brankovic. When they faced the Gauchos last year, Brankovic scored twice and assisted twice, while Herzer made eight saves, but Santa Barbara was able to keep Duart off the scoreboard entirely. They will look to do the same and to earn their first win over the Trojans since 2019 on Saturday.
 
No. 20 Navy reached the MAWPC Championship game in 2024 but fell to the unbeaten Fordham team that took the world by storm last year. Still, the Midshipmen finished with a 22-10 record and have a star around which they can build in attacker Kiefer Black. Black earned All-America Honorable Mention for a second season in a row in 2024, and like Santa Barbara's Dragovic, he spent his summer competing at the U20 World Championship, winning a silver medal. A La Jolla native, Black was teammates with Gaucho goalie Lentin for two years at La Jolla High School. When the two former Vikings face off on Sunday, it will be the first meeting between the Gauchos and Midshipmen since 2015.  
 
Pomona-Pitzer went 19-12 and won the SCIAC Regular Season Championship in 2024, but they were knocked out of the conference tournament by Chapman. The Division III Sagehens played 12 games against Division I opposition in 2024, including UCLA, Cal, and the Gauchos. They picked up wins over Mount St. Mary's Air Force and LIU, all by wide margins, but lost their meeting with Santa Barbara. At the end of the season, Pomona-Pitzer placed two attackers — Zach Whitfield and Miles Chiang — on Division III All-America teams. Both are back for this season.
 
UP NEXT
The Gauchos and Sagehens will get to see each other again next weekend, as Santa Barbara heads to the Inland Empire Classic, Sept. 5 and 6. The Gauchos will face Occidental and Fresno Pacific in Redlands next Friday, and Pomona-Pitzer and Concordia Irvine in Claremont next Saturday.