April 30, 2012

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LOS ANGELES - Fresh off their ninth Western Water Polo Association Championship, the seventh-ranked LMU women's water polo team have earned the fifth seed and will face fourth seeded UC Irvine in the first round of the 2012 National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship on Friday, May 11 in the final game of the day at 5:15 p.m.

The championship will be held May 11-13 at the Aztec Aquaplex, in San Diego, with San Diego State serving as the host school. The championship will be an eight-team, single-elimination tournament (total of 12 games) with a losers' bracket to determine places three through eight.

Automatic qualifiers were awarded to the Big West Conference (UC Irvine), Collegiate Water Polo Association (Princeton), Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Iona), Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (UCLA), Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (Pomona-Pitzer) and the Western Water Polo Association (LMU). Stanford and Southern California received at-large bids to the championship field.

The No. 1 seed was awarded to Stanford (23-2) and the No. 2 seed was awarded to UCLA (21-3). UCLA will face No. 7 seed Iona (24-11) May 11 in the first game of the championship at 3 p.m. ET. The next game will feature No. 3 seed Southern California (21-5) and No. 6 seed Princeton (28-4) at 4:45 p.m. ET followed by Stanford and Pomona-Pitzer (21-16) in the third game of the day at 6:30 p.m. ET.

The Lions and Anteaters will meet for the third time on the season in the final game of the first day. UC Irvine earned a 12-9 win at the Burns Aquatic Center on Feb. 18, and then a week later the Lions earned a 9-6 win at UCI on Feb. 25.

This is the Lions ninth trip to the NCAA Championships and will be the first time the Lions will open the tournament against a foe not from the MPSF.