Sept. 29, 2005
SAN DIEGO - San Diego State water polo head coach Carin Crawford announced the team's 2006 schedule on Thursday. The schedule features seven home games, all at the Ray and Joan Kroc Community Center, in addition to the annual preseason alumni game.
The aforementioned alumni game will kick off the 2006 campaign Saturday, Jan. 28, at noon, followed by a trip to the UC San Diego Invitational (Feb. 11-12), to begin the regular season. This marks the fourth time in five years that SDSU has opened play in La Jolla.
San Diego State plays host to Mountain Pacific Sports Federation foe Hawai'i, Thursday, Feb. 23, and will be the first of four consecutive competition days. The home opener is scheduled for a 3 p.m. start and will be the first time the Rainbow Wahine has made an appearance in San Diego since 2004.
The next day, the Aztecs will travel north to Northridge, Calif. for a 3 p.m. conference match against Cal State Northridge (Feb. 24) and will continue its trek north to Santa Barbara, Calif. for the two-day UC Santa Barbara Invitational (Feb. 25-26).
SDSU returns home for its longest homestand of the season March 4 as it takes on the University of the Pacific in a conference game slated for 11 a.m. Later in the day, the Aztecs welcome Occidental College to the Kroc Community Center for a non-conference match at 4 p.m.
A week later, San Diego State plays host to Long Beach State for a noontime game on March 11 before hitting the road for two straight weeks.
The road trip begins March 12 at defending national champion UCLA and continues March 18-19 at the Michigan Invitational in Ann Arbor, Mich. After returning to San Diego, SDSU will participate at the Loyola Marymount Invitational in Los Angeles (March 24-25) and take on UC Irvine and Maryland in Irvine, Calif. on March 26.
Once the two-week road trip concludes, the Aztecs will play conference opponents California and Southern California at home on March 30 and April 1, respectively.
After its brief two-match homestand, the schedule sees San Diego State head to Northern California to play Stanford and San Jose State in consecutive days. Its game with the Cardinal (April 8) is set for a 6 p.m. start, while the Aztecs-Spartans (April 9) game will be contested at noon.
SDSU's final home match of the season will be April 15 against UC Santa Barbara. The Senior Day game is scheduled for a 10 a.m. start. The last time these two teams met, the Aztecs avenged two earlier losses and defeated the then-sixth-ranked Gauchos, 7-4, in the first round of the 2005 MPSF Tournament.
The fifth annual Harper Cup between San Diego State and UC San Diego switches venues this year and will be held at UCSD. The match, slated for April 20 at 6 p.m., is named after current UCSD men's water polo coach Denny Harper, who coached Crawford and UCSD women's head coach Larry Sanders while they were attending the La Jolla school. The Aztecs go into the game looking to retain the Harper Cup for a fifth consecutive year.
The 2006 season ends with a road match at Arizona State at noon on April 22 before the conference tournament takes place April 28-30. This season, SDSU will look to earn the MPSF's automatic berth to the NCAA tournament at Anteater Aquatics Complex on the campus of UC Irvine.