No. 6 'Eaters Clash in Big West Rivalry Matchup

Friday, March 25

Long Beach, Calif.

7:00 PM

UC Irvine

Long Beach State

grisham-nichols-smith-tedesco-uci-wwp-2022-ucsb-lbsu

Photo by: Matt Brown

No. 6 'Eaters Clash in Big West Rivalry Matchup

March 23, 2022 | Women's Water Polo

By: Alex Roberts-Croteau

					This Week in UC Irvine Women's Water Polo
Dates				March 25, 2022
Location				Ken Lindgren Aquatics Center - Long Beach, Calif.
Times				Friday - 7:00 PM #10 Long Beach State Beach Live Stats
Opponent
Live Stream
Live Stats
Match Notes				UC Irvine Women's Water Polo Notes
Social Media				@UCIwwp @UCIwwp UC Irvine Women's Water Polo #RipEm #TogetherWeZot

STORYLINES
· UCI remain sixth in the nation after being ranked seventh all season entering March. The Anteaters upset No. 6 Michigan at the Kalbus Invite and went 3-1 to finish fifth, but dropped a match at No. 2 UCLA for its first road loss. The Anteaters won their most recent match defeating No. 20 San Diego State at home, 14-10, behind hat tricks from Elena Flynn and Tara Prentice.
· The Anteaters are 2-0 in Big West Play winning at No. 16 UCSB by eight goals and at No. 24 CSUN by 14 goals. Big West preseason polls selected the 'Eaters to finish first. Conference play returns March 25 at Long Beach State.
· Tara Prentice leads the team with 45 goals. She became the sixth Anteater with 200 career goals during the Kalbus Invite and surpassed Erica Horman and Mary Brooks all-time for third place with 213 in her career. Next on the list is Robyn Kaake four ahead of Prentice, and she's just 11 away from the program all-time scoring leader, Jessy Cardey. Her six-goal game at LMU was her career high at UCI, and she added five goals at UC Santa Barbara for six career games with at least five goals. Prentice also leads the squad in steals with 19 and exclusions drawn with 55 of the team's 120 recorded exclusions drawn this season.
· Sarah Nichols is UCI's assist leader with 19 adding three in Sunday's match. She also posted UCI's only two 2-field block matches of 2022 in the wins over Long Beach State and San Diego State, and leads all 'Eaters with seven this season.
· Keeper Faith Tedesco has made all 19 starts with a 14-5 record. She has 126 saves with a high of 15 in a match this season against Fresno State. Tedesco has posted an 9.03 goals-against-average this season and for her career.
· Piper Smith netted her 100th career goal vs. Azusa Pacific. Smith is the 17th Anteater with 100 career goals. She's also the leading sprinter winning 12 of 17 sprints and has won 67% of her sprints, 67 wins in total over her career
· Some 'Eaters surpassed milestones with Tara Prentice playing her 100th match on Sunday. Jessica Lynch reached 100 career points with her four at UCLA now with 103 in her career behind 70 goals and 33 assists.
· The Anteaters finished fifth at the UCSD Triton Invite and Kalbus Invite at UCI winning three of four matches at each. UCI also won two of four matches to open the season at the ASU Cross Conference Challenge in Tempe.
· Schedule changes were announced for games at Cal, now April 2 at 12:30 p.m., and the April 2 match at Cal State East Bay has now been shifted to a 5:00 p.m. start.

ANTEATER ACCOLADES
· Anteaters have won Big West Player of the Week five times between two players. Tara Prentice won her fourth of the year, third straight, and seventh in her career this week all setting Big West records. Nioka Thomas drew the fifth Anteater award and the first of her career giving UCI five of the seven Big West awards in 2022.
· Big West Commissioner's Honor Roll was announced for student-athletes over 3.00 GPA in 2021 with 18 women's water polo players. Jensine Bugelli, Kira Hoffman, Tara Prentice, Kili Skibby, and Rylee Williams were recognized highest honors and Brooke Banta, Ariana Bockstahler, Elena Flynn, Jordan Frost, Jessica Lynch, Maeve Murphy, Jessica Newell, Sarah Nichols, Isabel Rack, Portia Schiavone, Mica Schiavone, Piper Smith, and Faith Tedesco with honors. This builds off the 12 players among the 113 Anteaters on fall Dean's List.
· In the pool, three were named ACWPC All-Americans including graduates Morgan Jones and Megan Falcon, and a lone returner in Piper Smith on the Second Team who led the squad in scoring with 26 goals.
· Three-time All-American Tara Prentice returns after sitting out the 2021 season to train of the 2021 Olympics. Prentice entered the season with 168 career goals and passed 200 for his career so far.

FRIDAY AT LONG BEACH STATE
· The Black & Blue Rivalry Series returns Friday night at Long Beach State. The programs have played twice already, once at the Triton Invite with UCI winning by two and against the Kalbus Invite winning by one, and both with LBSU ranked No. 13. UCI leads the all-time series, 35-11, having won the last 21 matchups, and have not lost at Long Beach State since 2004.
· Long Beach State enters the week No. 10 in the nation with a record of 11-11. After a long stretch away from home, they've now played in three of the last four losing most recently to No. 1 Stanford. LBSU lost its lone conference matchup at UCSD two weeks ago, 10-9. The Beach has been up and down with a pair of three-match win streaks, a four-match losing streak, and notable results including a split in two matches with UC Davis and a win over Arizona State
· The offense revolves around Orsi Hertzka scoring a team-high 54 goals along with one of the top players winning sprints and earning exclusions. Other notable player are Lena Kotanchyan (38 G, 15 STL, 6 FB), Marilia Mimides (17 G, 23 A, 19 SPW), and Anne de Kleer (29 G). In net, Inbar Geva and Chelsea Oliver have split the starts stopping 126 shots together.