STANFORD, Calif. — The No. 14 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team is set to visit another Mountain Pacific Sports Federation pool this weekend, as the Gauchos will travel north to Stanford, where the Cardinal are hosting the Overnght MPSF Invitational. The three-day tournament starts on Friday — with the Gauchos opening their weekend against No. 6 Long Beach State — and continues through Sunday, with Santa Barbara set to play a total of four games as they progress through the bracket.
 
LAST TIME OUT
The Gauchos hold the 11^th seed in this weekend's 16-team field thanks in part to a pivotal win over No. 15 LMU last weekend in Los Angeles. Santa Barbara rallied from an 8-5 halftime deficit by out-scoring the Lions, 4-0 in the third quarter and then making that one-goal lead stick through a back-and-forth fourth. For comparison, LMU holds the 13^th seed for this weekend's event and will face No. 4 California in their opening match.
 
The Gauchos' victory over the Lions was part of a two-game Saturday at UCLA last weekend, with Santa Barbara also mounting a late comeback against the No. 1 Bruins but coming up short. Unsurprisingly, freshman Luigi Canepa drove the offense, tallying a total of seven goals and four assists across the two games. Six of those goals came in the big win over LMU, with team co-captain Landon Lassahn contributing a hat-trick in that game as well. Canepa scored only once against UCLA but registered a season-high three assists instead, making himself involved in just under half of the team's nine goals. For his big weekend, the Serbian was named The Big West Player of the Week for the second week in a row on Wednesday.
 
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
No. 6 Long Beach State suffered its first loss of the season after six straight wins, falling to No. 2 USC in Long Beach on Sept. 4. That was the Beach's last official action leading into Friday night, though they did play two exhibitions and an alumni game on Sept. 5. Picked as preseason favorites to win The Big West, Long Beach opened 2026 with six straight wins, though only four of those were against Division-I opposition, and only two of them ranked. Five of the Beach's opponents are teams that the Gauchos have also played this season, providing a method of comparison. Long Beach defeated Pepperdine by two, where Santa Barbara lost by four. The Beach's 17-11 loss to USC was closer than the Gauchos' 27-10 defeat, and Long Beach's 16-10 win over Saint Mary's was more comfortable than Santa Barbara's 16-14 victory, in the same way that their 28-9 margin against McKendree was wider than the Gauchos' 25-11 win over the Bearcats. However, the Gauchos' 27-6 win over Mercyhurst was a wider margin and more goals scored than the Beach's 24-4 win over the Lakers.
 
No. 3 Stanford has played just one more game since their meeting with the Gauchos in Santa Barbara, defeating Pacific by a score of 19-6 in Stockton. The Cardinal will play their first home game of the season immediately before Santa Barbara takes on Long Beach on Friday. The winner of that game between Stanford and Santa Clara will play the winner of the Gauchos' meeting with the Beach (and the losers will face each other as well).
 
In preparing for a potential rematch with the Cardinal, Santa Barbara will look to find some way to counter Stanford's depth; 12 different players were on the scoresheet for the Cardinal in the first meeting. The biggest contributors of those 12 were Botond Balogh (six goals, three assists), Ben Forer (three goals, three assists) and Ryan Ohl (two goals, three assists).
 
No. 17 Santa Clara has the same 6-1 record as sixth-ranked Long Beach State and is coming off a 3-0 weekend on the East Coast last weekend. The Broncos handled Wagner and Bucknell comfortably, 17-9 and 16-9 respectively, then earned their first ranked win of the season by beating No. 18 Harvard, 13-11. That victory over the Crimson was courtesy of five goals in the final 4:27 of the game, three of them from returning All-American utility man Riccardo De Simon. The Italian leads the Broncos with 18 goals in seven games.
 
The Rest of the Field includes the other three members of the "Big Four," No. 1 UCLA, No. 2 USC and No. 4 California, as well as a visitor from the East Coast in No. 8 Princeton. The Big West and West Coast Conference are both well-represented, with No. 9 UC San Diego, No. 13 UC Irvine and No. 16 California Baptist all joining the Beach and Gauchos on The Big West side and No. 6 UC Davis, No. 11 Pepperdine, No. 11 San Jose State and No. 15 LMU joining the Broncos as the WCC contingent. Rounding out the field is the ever-ambitious Division-III program of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
The Gauchos' weekend begins when they take on Long Beach at 6 p.m. on Friday from Stanford's Avery Aquatic Center, with the rest of the schedule determined by results. Santa Barbara will play their first of two Saturday games against either Stanford or Santa Clara at 12:20 p.m., then play their second Saturday contest at either 4:40 p.m. or 6 p.m. Depending on results, the Gauchos will play their final game of the weekend sometime between 9:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday. All four of UC Santa Barbara's games will be streamed live on overnght.com, and should they face Stanford, Cal, USC or UCLA, live stats will also be available.