Men’s water polo has been on fire, but can they win a conference championship?

Courtesy of Larry Newman

A month ago, Chapman men’s water polo was barely staying afloat. They started the season with six wins and nine losses in total, but more importantly only had one win in four games in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC). 

A break from conference games to play in the Harvard Invitational was exactly what the Panthers needed. They regrouped and have been largely unstoppable since returning, clinching the third seed in the playoffs. They will now head to Claremont to face Pomona-Pitzer Colleges on Thursday at 7 p.m. for a spot in the championship game.

Head coach Eric Ploessel, who has guided the men’s team for 16 years and the women’s team for over two decades, said that his team was still finding their groove when they left for Cambridge, Massachusetts. Working through the kinks that became present in non-conference play, Chapman was searching for an identity.

Fast forward and they have won six out of their last seven, only losing to Whittier College this past weekend. The win streak started before the invitational tournament, making it seven in a row for conference play. In the SCIAC, Chapman finished as the top offensive team with 188 total goals in just 12 games, nine more than first seed Redlands University. 

Their identity had been found: score more goals than your opponents, no matter how many it takes. After managing fewer than 10 in each of their first three conference losses, the Panthers haven’t finished a game with less than 12 goals and have scored over 20 on three occasions.

While the win streak and goal-fests have emboldened his team, Ploessel said that he needs them to play at a high level even more consistently.

“Are they going to be, every single minute together, playing the right way and playing hard?” Ploessel asked.

In his interview with The Panther, he continued to hammer home a mantra: Chapman needs to focus. The answer to most questions would come back to that central idea, with the coach even banging his hand on the table a few times to reinforce its importance. Ploessel said that the Panthers can’t play lax for even a few minutes during the playoffs or they’ll be picked apart. Having to claw back isn’t the ideal avenue to success in elimination games.

The effects of a few poor moments were seen most during Chapman’s 15-9 loss to Pomona-Pitzer on Oct. 12, where Ploessel said they weren’t engaged and found themselves in a hole. The coach has no reservations about the team’s skill level, though.

“If we’re focused all the way through, for four quarters, there is nobody in this conference that is going to stop us,” he said.

Maintaining that sharp edge starts at their late night practices. While they come at the end of a long day, Ploessel said he needs every player to be present for the entire two and a half hours, both physically and mentally.

The team has been mainly working on defense in recent weeks. They allowed 157 goals in the SCIAC. Ploessel recognized that defensive errors have to be rectified, and said that poor positioning has allowed other teams to gain a physical advantage. Water polo is an extremely rough sport and the coach noted that his team simply can’t let their opponents be stronger, it creates easy opportunities for shots on goal.

To win a title, the Panthers will certainly be relying on junior goalkeeper Jackson Sanders, a software engineering major. He set the school record for single game saves in a non-conference match against Biola University earlier this year and also led the conference in saves. If Chapman doesn’t fortify their defense, then they’ll need a few more big time performances from their goalie.

Offensively, the Panthers have often turned to senior attacker Everett Prussak who led the SCIAC with 95 individual goals for the season. The six-foot computer science major terrorized opposing goalkeepers but was only able to manage one goal against Pomona-Pitzer. Prussak will need to find the remedy for their defense if Chapman wants any chance of winning.

Through the stellar second half of the season, Ploessel has maintained a sober viewpoint. He said that, even during wins, the team was making similar mistakes when it came to being consistently locked in, especially on defense. He noted, however, that those lapses were more few and far between than before.

“That’s what we really have fixed (our focus),” Ploessel said. “When we haven’t, we take some losses.”

While he would not fully divulge the specifics, Ploessel did say that he has a certain expectation as to what Pomona-Pitzer will play like. With a season’s worth of film, he is preparing the team fully to avoid any surprises on Thursday. He said that there are areas that Chapman can exploit, they just have to capitalize on it.

Men’s water polo represents the last chance for a fall sports team at Chapman to bring home a conference championship. With men’s soccer and football falling at the final hurdle, it is up to the boys in the pool to grab two wins and the glory in the SCIAC. 

Ploessel seemed unfazed by that pressure, brushing off the idea that water polo is a saving grace of sorts for the school. He said that he hopes his players feel loose and believes they are ready to compete.

“I was getting text messages Sunday, and even Saturday night, (saying), ‘we got this, we’re going to get this team, we’re going to go after them,’” he said. “We’re ready for them.”

The high octane Panthers offense will have to find their groove against the third ranked offense and defense in the conference. Pomona-Pitzer’s balance on both ends of the pool is why they finished tied for first with a 10-2 conference record, only placing second due to a worse goal differential than Redlands.

Feeding Prussak early can help him establish a rhythm, and if the game turns into a high-scoring event, Chapman would be favored — but Ploessel doesn’t want that. He wants to establish the same level of balance that their opponents have, imposing the team’s will from the first sprint.

To get a shot at a championship, and maybe another game at Allred Aquatics Center, Chapman needs to do one important thing. It shouldn’t come as a surprise what Ploessel said will decide the outcome against Pomona-Pitzer.

“Are we going to be focused as soon as we walk on that deck?” he said. “Are we going to be focused for four quarters? (If) we will, we’re going to get this win.”

As the most in-form team in the conference, the Panthers should feel like the trophy is theirs for the taking. They just need two comprehensive performances to close it out.