SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The No. 8 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team plays its final two regular season matches of the year this weekend, and the Gauchos enter their back-to-back matchups with No. 4 USC and Cal State Fullerton with a world to play for. Weirdly, the pressure fixture is not Saturday's Senior Day meeting with the Trojans. Santa Barbara will celebrate soon-to-be graduates Thomas Colpo and Wyatt Pieretti, play an entertaining game of water polo against one of the top teams in the country and then get on a bus to Orange County, where the real contest of consequence awaits. With a win over Cal State Fullerton on Sunday, the Gauchos would earn a share of The Big West Regular Season Championship, their first Big West crown of any kind since 1990. With some help elsewhere, that landmark title would come with the no. 1 seed for the conference tournament, pole position in the race for The Big West's automatic berth into the National Championship Tournament.
 
LAST TIME OUT
Santa Barbara is no stranger to success in Orange County this year; the Gauchos enter this weekend after an 11-10 win over UC Irvine in Irvine, a result that extended their winning streak to three, all against opponents ranked inside the national top 10. Santa Barbara's offense has provided steady scoring all season long, with freshman phenom Luigi Canepa's 78 goals and 3.3 goals-per-game average both leading The Big West. He had three against the Anteaters last weekend, including the game-winner. Co-captains Finn Genc and Landon Lassahn have contributed more than just veteran leadership; Genc is the reigning Big West Player of the Week after four goals, two assists and five steals in Irvine on Friday. Oh, and 2025 Big West Freshman of the Year Charlie Johnson still has his lethal left hand, with 45 goals on the season.
 
But what has set the Gauchos apart on their current win streak is the defense, holding UC San Diego and Long Beach State to just eight goals each, and UC Irvine to 10. Fifth-year goalkeeper Pieretti has anchored that defensive effort; he made a whopping 15 saves to preserve Santa Barbara's narrow lead in Irvine on Friday night and has had more blocks than goals allowed in each of the last three games. The last time he played in his home pool, he tallied his first career goal with a full-length lob as the Gauchos ran away from Long Beach State in the fourth quarter.
 
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
No. 4 USC enters the weekend after back-to-back conference losses to Stanford and California on back-to-back days. The Trojans have a 14-5 record overall, with all five of those defeats coming in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation action, where they have just a 1-5 record. USC did beat the Gauchos by a comfortable 27-10 margin when these two teams first met, all the way back on the season's opening weekend at the end of August. Strahinja Krstic scored four goals in that game and currently leads his team with 49 on the season. Robert Lopez Duart, who scored three against the Gauchos in August, is close behind Krstic with 45 on the season. Apostolos Georgaras, Luke Nelson and Adrian Senciac each also scored three against Santa Barbara in the first meeting; they enter the weekend with 27, 30 and seven goals on the season respectively.
 
Cal State Fullerton is still in search of a first Big West win since reviving its program in 2023, though they came close in their last meeting with the Gauchos, Santa Barbara holding off a second-half rally on Senior Day in 2025. The Titans enter Sunday's match on a four-game losing streak, all of them conference contests, but they will be glad to be hosting instead of visiting; Fullerton is 7-4 at home and 0-3 in true road games this season, with a 10-5 record when playing in a neutral pool.
 
The Gauchos will be glad to see the back of Jacob Hatch and Andrew Barnuevo, who combined for five of the Titans' 11 goals in the teams' last meeting; neither is in Fullerton this year. Instead, the Titans are led by Denes Dobi and Ethan MacLeod, who have 48 and 44 goals on the season, respectively.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
Santa Barbara's final home match of the season starts at 1 p.m. from Santa Barbara High School on Saturday, where admission is free and open until the venue's capacity is reached. Prior to the Gauchos and Trojans hitting the water on Saturday, UC Santa Barbara will honor its graduating student-athletes in a Senior Day ceremony beginning at 12:45 p.m.
 
Sunday's Big West regular season title decider will begin at 12 noon from the Titan Aquatics Center in Fullerton. Both of the Gauchos' matches this weekend will be streamed live on ESPN+ and have live stats and play-by-play updates available at ucsbgauchos.com/MWP_Stats.