The water in Axelrood Aquatic Center and Haldeman Pool stood still this weekend as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) and Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) men’s water polo teams traveled down the coast to compete at UC San Diego’s Triton Invitational.
On Sept. 7 and 8, the Tritons hosted 18 teams—the most competitors in the event’s history — including 10 of the teams in the Collegiate Water Polo Association’s top 20 overall men’s varsity preseason polls.
During their stay in San Diego, Claremont’s very own NCAA Division III’s No. 1-ranked Stags prepared to face several of their highly-ranked opponents across divisions: Division I’s No. 6 UC Irvine, No. 2 UC Berkeley and No. 11 UC Santa Barbara.
On the first day, the Stags fell to both Irvine and Berkeley, with respective scores of 8-18 and 8-19. Despite the final scores, CMS had several stand-out performances throughout the day, including a six-goal performance from Nick Kennedy CM ‘27 and a hat trick by Luke “Bear” Weigle CM ‘26.
Facing off against UC Merced the next day, the Stags turned their luck around. With the help of Luke Leonard CM ’28 – who scored the first goal from the class of 2028 of the season – CMS walked away with a 12-11 victory, their first win of the tournament.
In their final game, the Stags kept UC Santa Barbara tied 3-3 until the second quarter where they put away five more goals on the Gauchos, but ultimately fell to them 8-16.
The Stags, who are now beginning their regular season, said they viewed the tournament as a test run for their upcoming games.
“It was the first weekend, so it’s really sort of a temperature test,” Ashwin Rhodes CM ’24 said. “There’s five people who have never played college water polo before. How are they going to be? You never know before you get behind the wheel.”
According to Rhodes, the CMS first-years surpassed expectations, noting Leonard’s first collegiate goal. Both Rhodes and Kennedy emphasized the importance of the Stags’ upperclassmen in incorporating the new players into the team.
“A big focus for the upperclassmen is to transfer confidence to the freshmen,” Kennedy said. “They install the mindset: make the right decision, but at the same time, don’t be scared or too intimidated, and know when it’s your turn to do something in the game. Do it right and do it confidently.”
Traveling from the other side of Sixth Street, DIII’s No. 3-ranked Sagehens faced three top-20-ranked teams, including DI No. 1 UCLA.
On their first day, the Hens faced off against DI’s No. 13 Pepperdine and unranked Cal State Fullerton. In game one, P-P had two-goal performances from Chase Barman PZ ‘27, Indigo Lee PO ‘27 and Zach Whitfield PO ‘27, but ultimately lost 9-21.
Later in the day, P-P held the lead over Fullerton for the first three quarters but ended up falling 12-13. Despite the loss, the Hens walked away with beaks held high due to Connor Sullivan PO ‘28, Max Disasto PO ‘28 and Micah Webber PZ ‘28 netting the first goals of their college careers.
Day two for the Hens featured stiff competition from the host team, No. 12 UC San Diego, and No. 1 UCLA, both DI teams. P-P put up valiant efforts in both games, netting 12 goals on the day, including a hat trick by Whitfield, but left the tournament with two more losses.
According to Sullivan, the Hens saw this weekend as an opportunity to test the team against strong competitors before the beginning of SCIAC play.
“I think the biggest skill that we were trying to work on was swinging the ball,” Sullivan said. “We worked on staying in the moment and trying to stay focused knowing that there was a lot of noise in the stadium.”
Sullivan expressed satisfaction with P-P’s ability to capitalize on this opportunity and left the weekend feeling hopeful about the future of Sagehen men’s water polo.
“I’m proud of the boys, especially our freshmen, that stepped up over this last weekend,” Sullivan said. “Our team’s going to be good for years to come.”
Both the Stags and Sagehens will have another opportunity to face DI competitors at the Inland Empire tournament, which will take place in Claremont on Saturday, Sept. 14 and Sunday, Sept. 15. Both CMS and P-P will begin SCIAC play in the upcoming weeks with CMS facing off against Chapman University on Sept. 28 and P-P taking on Caltech on Sept. 19.
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