Tritons Squeak Into Water Polo Nationals

They go into NCAA nationals this weekend much like the team that almost kept them from the tournament in the first place.

During the championship of the Western Water Polo Assn. at Cal Poly Pomona on Sunday, Air Force played UC San Diego like it had nothing to lose and everything to gain. The Falcons forced the Tritons into four overtime periods--including two sudden deaths--before UCSD prevailed, 9-8.

At stake was which team the WWPA would send to nationals. With the conference title, UCSD advanced to nationals for the ninth time in the past 10 years.

UCSD Coach Denny Harper wasn’t impressed with his team’s near-miss, but he’s hoping the Tritons will use the scare to their advantage.

“Prior to the game they were overconfident,” said Harper, whose team had beaten Air Force twice earlier in the season. “Every time I addressed the subject of Air Force, they’d smile and intimate they’d have no trouble with them. They were thinking they’d cruise through to make it to (nationals) this weekend.”

The temporary lapse may have been the best thing that could have happened to the Tritons. Harper is convinced his team took a reality check.

“You took the words right out of mouth,” he said.

Going into Friday’s opener against third-seeded USC, sixth-seeded UCSD will be in the same boat Air Force was a week ago.

“The roles are reversed,” he said. “(USC) goes in with a different attitude than we do. We don’t go in thinking we can win (nationals) and they do. Obviously, it’s a crazy dream thinking we can win. We’re more realistic. We think we can at least one game.”

Against common opponents, the Trojans have been one or two goals better than the Tritons. To beat USC, UCSD has to “play the game of our lives and USC has to play a mediocre game,” Harper said.

Minor injuries to Valhalla High graduate Mike Nalu and Kevin Vance have cut into the Tritons’ efficiency, but it has also allowed other players to step up their efforts.

Coronado High’s James Skaalen and Poway High’s Reid Conant, both sophomores, have shown marked improvement.

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One last volley: The UCSD water polo team’s national odyssey is just beginning, but it is over for the women’s volleyball team, which lost the Division III national title Saturday to Washington University in St. Louis.

But UCSD’s straight-games loss to 40-0 Washington isn’t a source of embarrassment to Coach Doug Dannevik, who began the season with a team chock full of youth and inexperience.

“We didn’t feel we could put it together,” Dannevik said the sentiment was early on. “But the kids really trusted me on the long-range plans I had.”

In the end, Washington was just too good.

“I don’t know if we we’re even the second best team (in the nation),” he said. “But we got a crack at them.”

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Local bragging rights: Next week’s San Diego State-University of San Diego men’s basketball game may decide who has the best Division I team in town, but this weekend’s Triton Tipoff Tournament will do the same at the small-college level.

For the third consecutive year, Point Loma Nazarene, Christian Heritage College and UCSD--Redlands was the outside team invited this season--will participate in UCSD’s tournament to determine who is the best small fish in the local pond.

“I don’t know how much of a rivalry it is, but it’s always a grudge match,” UCSD Coach Tom Marshall said of Friday’s PLNC-UCSD clash. “You look at it as bragging rights and (PLNC) had them last summer. We’d like to see if we can come back and beat them.”

Last year, UCSD began the season a disappointing 5-4, before it won 17 in a row and finished 22-5.

Some local talent will help decide who shall boast. UCSD features home-grown starters Andy Swindall of San Diego High, John Spence of Patrick Henry High and Brad Halte of Granite Hills High and Grossmont College. Christian Heritage relies on El Cajon’s David Piester and David Jeremiah and Encinitas’ Mark Weitala. PLNC has one local talent, Lemon Grove’s Mike Flores, who is injured.

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And miles to go: Cuyamaca College cross country coach Ron Tabb didn’t get much rest getting his team whipped into shape this season. Before Tabb, a first-year coach at the East County community college, took over, Cuyamaca had never won as much as a dual meet.

This year, he took his men’s team and two women representatives to their first state meet. In their inaugural effort, the men finished 19th out of 28 teams. Eight out of nine runners set personal records and the team set a school record for record low times as a group and Geoff Pfau set a individual school record. Pfau was 30th overall out of 237 finishers.

Laura Magin and Tracy Yaddow bettered their personal bests and finished among the top 50, although Tabb said neither woman ran her best race.

“I thought I’d be lucky to get three people in the state meet,” Tabb said of both teams. “They really matured over the season. Their work ethic was good. They continued to improve week in and week out.”

Cuyamaca’s men (3-1) finished second in the Pacific Coast Conference and the women (3-2) were four points out of second. Pfau, Julio Bobrowski, Dave Gilbert, Marty Weston, Don Franken, Ron Lane and Armando Bobrowski made up the men’s team.