BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana water polo head coach Ryan Castle unveiled the Hoosiers’ upcoming 2016-17 schedule on Wednesday.
. The Hoosiers will hold three regular season home games before hosting the 2017 CWPA Championship at the Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center and the 2017 NCAA Championship at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis.
In total, Indiana will play 17 games against 15 teams in last season’s final national top 25, including the No. 1 reigning national champion USC Trojans (3/16) and the No. 2 UCLA Bruins (1/21). The Hoosiers face five of last year’s final top 10, and 10 teams ranked in the top 25 on their non-conference slate.
“We are starting with a tough trip to UCSB to compete against some of the nations toughest teams,” Castle said on the non-conference schedule. “UCSB is the defending BigWest Champion, Hawaii is a perennial top 10 team, and UCLA is always a national title contender. This will give us an opportunity to test ourselves early on and help us develop as a team.”
After that, Castle said, the Hoosiers have a healthy mix of strong MAAC teams in the middle of their schedule, before a return out west to the Aztec Invite at San Diego State and a trip to Hawaii to compete against currently unbeaten USC and the hosting Rainbow Wahine.
Indiana’s CWPA schedule provides another season of challenging tests on the quest for NCAA qualification. Five of the Hoosiers’ eight conference opponents finished in last year’s top 25. That includes Indiana’s biggest rival, No. 5 Michigan, who defeated the Hoosiers in last season’s CWPA Championship game.
Indiana kicks off the conference slate against the Wolverines at Canham Natatorium on March 25, before heading to Onenota, New York for a weekend against Princeton (4/8), Bucknell (4/8), and George Washington (4/9). They’ll close their regular season conference play at Brown University, starting with the hosting Bears (4/15) before a game against Saint Francis (4/15), the newcomers of the CWPA. They close the regular season road schedule with two top-25 conference foes, Harvard and Hartwick, on April 16.
Castle, who has served as an assistant on two CWPA teams in his career, is familiar with the workings of the NCAA’s premier east coast conference. Coming from Hawaii, however, the Hoosiers’ first year head coach faces a return to the challenges of multi-game weekends.
“The CWPA is a challenging conference with a wide variety of teams and healthy competition,” said Castle. “Under this four-game weekend format, anything can happen. You don’t have the same amount of time to thoroughly prepare for your opposition, and a lot depends on the order the conference schedules the games. But that in itself is a challenge we have to rise up and meet.”
The Hoosiers will conclude their regular season with a one-game weekend against McKendree University on Friday, October 21 at 7:00 p.m. ET. The game will serve as Indiana’s senior night, where they will honor this year’s 2017 senior, Bronwyn Smith.
Indiana will host the CWPA Championship weekend from Friday, April 28 to Sunday, April 30 at the Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center. The Hoosiers have reached the CWPA Championship match in each of their last three seasons, with their last title win coming in 2014.
Following that, Indiana will serve as hosts for the 2017 Division I Water Polo Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana. The tournament will run from Friday, May 12 to Sunday, May 14 at the IU Natatorium on the IUPUI campus. The Hoosiers last reached the NCAA Championship was in 2014, where they earned a seventh-place finish. It will be the first time in program history that Indiana hosts the NCAA Water Polo Championships.
Swimming news courtesy of Indiana Water Polo.
