GCC Release
 
ALISO VIEJO, Calif. – The LMU women's water polo team is scheduled to begin the spring 2020 season this weekend. The Lions will compete in Hawaii's Rainbow Invitational, on Saturday and Sunday, opening against the hosts and then playing Marist and Fresno State to close out the weekend.
 
Hawaii was an NCAA Tournament quarterfinal team a season ago and will prove to be a tough test to open the year for the Lions. That game will be the first one of the tournament, and be played at Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex at 1:30 p.m. PST on Saturday.

The day will continue with LMU taking on Marist at 7:30 p.m. PST, before facing fellow GCC opponent Fresno State in their lone game on Sunday.
 
"We do a lot of player development in our program," said Head Coach Kyle Witt. "Every year we graduate one, two, three, or four really top-level players in our conference, whether they are All-Conference or All-American. Last year was no different. We graduated two All-Americans in Morgan Molloy and Hana Vilanova, as well as our starting goalkeeper Sky Flores. We have to step into those available minutes now. That's not going to be done overnight, but that is something that will happen when we get into conference play. I like this team now though; this team wants it. They want to win the championship and they are doing everything they can to get there."
 
Additionally, the Golden Coast Conference released the annual Preseason Coaches Poll on Tuesday. LMU received one first place vote and 42 total points, which places second to reigning champion Pacific.
 
"I think the conference continues to improve," said Witt. "The teams are getting much more competitive with each other. Clearly the top of the conference is a battle with San Diego State, Fresno State, and Pacific in the top four with us. We've had a lot of people sleep on Azusa Pacific, Cal Baptist, and Santa Clara over the years, and they've played some close games and earned some victories as well. We don't look past anyone in our conference."
 
 

Team	Total Points	FP
1. University of the Pacific	49 points	7
2. Loyola Marymount	42 points	1
3. Fresno State	38 points
4. San Diego State	31 points
5. Azusa Pacific	24 points
6. California Baptist	20 points
7. Santa Clara	11 points
8. Concordia - Irvine	9 points

 
The Lions have six weekends of tournaments away from campus before the first single match of the season against Azusa Pacific on Mar. 14.
 
"We have to get healthy in these early tournaments," added Witt. "I've never had a team more knicked up than this team. We also need to learn a new role and have our subs become starters and our returning starters becoming more relied on for bigger minutes with key goals, or kickouts, or saves. Everyone has new roles this year. We're very young in that regard, we'll be starting freshman, we'll be starting sophomores, and our seniors need to step into new roles too.
 
"Abbey Grosse is a returning starter who will be asked to do a lot this year. She will be a senior captain alongside new starter and captain Melyssa Moore. Those are two seniors we really expect to step up. We have a new starting hold guard in Serena Zafiris, who did it well in spots last year and we expect a lot from her this year. We expect Megan Plank who came off the bench last year to really produce this year as well. Alena Sanchez is ready to go and we expect to have a big year for us. Mei Vilanova and Isabella Barajas are ready to compete for minutes as sophomores after not playing as much in their first season. Our goalie situation is going to be a battle with a sophomore and two freshmen. We have a lot of question marks, but all of them are good question marks. I'm excited to see how this team develops.
 
LMU makes their home debut on Mar. 20 and 21 for the annual LMU Invitational played at Burns Aquatics Center.
 
This year's GCC Tournament will be held Apr. 24-26 in Riverside.