Nov. 29, 2004

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Nov. 29) - After claiming their second consecutive Western Water Polo Association Championship last week, Loyola Marymount University was waiting to see exactly who they will be taking on in this year's NCAA Men's Water Polo Championship. The wait is over as the NCAA Men's Water Polo Committee announced that the Lions will take on Stanford in the second semifinal at the 2004 National Collegiate Championship.

This year's championship, hosted by Stanford University, will be held December 4-5.

In the first game, the UCLA (23-3) will play Princeton University (25-4) followed by Stanford (22-4) taking on the Lions (20-10). Game times are 3:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. Pacific time respectively on December 4. The third-place game will be played at 12:30 p.m. on December 5 with the championship game at 2:00 p.m. The national championship match will be televised live on CSTV.

Conferences receiving automatic qualification were: Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (Stanford), the Collegiate Water Polo Association (Princeton) and the Western Water Polo Association (LMU). UCLA, the top-ranked team for most of the season who lost to Stanford in the MPSF final on Sunday, was selected at-large without geographical restrictions.

This is the third trip in the last four seasons to the NCAA Tournament for the Lions, who have finished third in the two previous trips in 2001 and 2003. In 2001 the Lions lost to third-ranked UCLA 7-5 and then defeated 16th-ranked UMass 14-6 in the third-place game. Last season the Lions lost to second-ranked Stanford 14-8 but rebounded for a 10-7 win over 11th-ranked Navy.

"Our team is looking forward to the challenge of playing Stanford at their home pool in the NCAA tournament. This is the second year we have opened the tournament with Stanford," said Head Coach John Loughran. "Each year we have looked to take steps toward accomplishing firsts for our program. With each season, we seem to add to our success by doing things have not done before, and our goal is to keep improving and make a run at the NCAA championship."

The Lions defeated both Whittier (12-11) and UC Davis (7-6) in overtime and then knocked off Redlands 6-3 in the championship game to advance to this year's NCAA tournament. The Lions are the four-seed while Stanford is the number one seed. UCLA was seeded second and Princeton third.

Last year, Southern California defeated Stanford 9-7 in double overtime to capture its second championship. Since the beginning of the championship in 1969, no team from outside the state of California has ever reached the championship final.

- GO LIONS -