Inside The Race for the NCAA Tournament: League Championships Preview

All seven automatic berths for the NCAA Championships will be decided in league tournaments across the country.

Below is a short breakdown of each conference heading into Friday’s action.

Big West

• Site: Ken Lindgren Aquatics Center; Long Beach, California
• All six conference teams advance to the tournament
• Tournament Central

2018 Tournament Champion: #3 seed UC Irvine def. #1 seed Hawaii 8-7 in sudden victory

2019 Regular Season Champions: UC Irvine and Hawaii, both 4-1 in league action, shared the 2019 title, but the Anteaters were named the #1 seed via tiebreaker due to head to head results.

Notes:

• #1 seed UC Irvine and #2 seed Hawaii receive a bye to the semifinal matches set for Saturday afternoon.
• #1 seed UC Irvine, which has claimed the last two Big West Championships titles and seven overall (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2018), comes into the tournament on a five-match win streak.
• #4 seed UC Santa Barbara will be looking to record its 21st win of the season, which would be the highest output for the Gauchos in program history (20 in 2013, 2012 and 1997).
• UC Irvine’s Tara Prentice and Long Beach State’s Orsi Hertzka are the league’s goal leaders with 67 apiece

CWPA

• Site: Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center; Providence, Rhode Island
• Seven teams advance to the tournament
• Tournament Central

2018 Tournament Champion: #2 seed Michigan won its third straight tournament title with an 11-8 victory over top seeded Princeton

2019 Regular Season Champion: Michigan won the regular season title with a perfect 6-0 conference mark, its 11th in 19 years

Notes:

• Michigan, which is on a seven-game win streak, clinched the regular season title with a pair of victories over #18 Harvard (17-2) and #18 Bucknell (16-6) on April 13.
• Michigan will be looking for its fourth straight CWPA title and ninth overall. The Wolverines have played in the league championship match 12 times
• Bucknell’s Ally Furano leads the league with 111 goals, followed by Princeton’s Amy Castellano (71) and Harvard’s Kristen Hong (71) and Mathilde Ribordy (58), Bucknell’s Emily Konishi (58) and Kali Hyham (57), Michigan’s Abby Andrews (51) and Brown’s Katie Klein (51).

 GCC

• Site: Fresno State Aquatics Center; Fresno, California
• All eight GCC teams advance to the tournament
• Tournament Central

2018 Tournament Champion: #1 seed Pacific def. #2 seed Loyola Marymount 10-6

2019 Regular Season Champion: Pacific garnered its second straight regular season title

Notes

• Pacific, which earned the tournament’s top seed with a perfect 7-0 mark in league action, is on a six-match win streak.
• Loyola Marymount’s Marialena Seletopoulou leads the league with 71 goals scored. She was named Newcomer of the Year on Wednesday.
• Pacific’s Kyra Christmas was tabbed as the league’s Player of the Year after notching 51 goals and 29 assists.
• San Diego State’s Emily Bennett leads the league with 68 steals.

MAAC

• Site: McCann Natatorium; Poughkeepsie, New York
• The top four teams in the league receive tournament berths
• Tournament Central

2018 Tournament Champion: Wagner topped Marist 10-7 to claim its fifth-straight tournament championship. All five tournament title wins have come against the Red Foxes.

2019 Regular Season Champion: Wagner won its fourth straight crown with a 13-1 league mark

Notes

• Wagner and Iona are each making their 17 tournament appearance, while Marist is making its 16th.
• Wagner enters the tournament on a seven-match win streak, while Marist and Iona each lost their last regular season match and VMI has dropped its last five.
• St. Francis Brooklyn’s Kelsey Snelgar (121) and Wagner’s Sofia Diaz Alvarez (106) led a group of nine players with 70 or more goals.
• Wagner’s Kristy Donkin has dished 96 assists, while teammate Erica Hardy is the league’s points leader (160 – 86 goals, 74 assists).

MPSF

• Site: Avery Aquatic Center; Palo Alto, California
• All seven teams participate in the league tournament
• Tournament Central

2018 Tournament Champion: Top seed USC edged past #2 seed Stanford 13-12 in overtime to take the MPSF tourney crown

2019 Regular Season Champion: Stanford went 6-0 to take the conference title after being picked second in the preseason poll.

Notes

• 2018 NCAA runnerup Stanford earned its first undefeated MPSF regular season since 2015, the last of six straight undefeated league marks for the Cardinal (2010-15).
• 2018 National Champion USC, which was picked to win the league in the preseason coaches poll, won 37-straight matches before falling to Stanford 9-8 in overtime on March 30.
• Stanford’s Makenzie Fischer has netted a league-best 76 goals (4.00 per game) in 2019, second most in a season in program history
• Five other players have tallied 50 or more goals: USC’s Maud Megens (60), Cal’s Emma Wright (51), UCLA’s Maddie Musselman (50), San Jose State’s Olga Descalzi Portell (50) and Arizona State’s Maud Koopman (50).
• USC’s Amanda Longan is tops among goalies, boasting a 4.22 goals against average

SCIAC

• Site: Semifinals will be played on the campus of the #1 and #2 seeds. The final will be played on the campus of the highest remaining seed
• Pomona-Pitzer plays host to LaVerne in one semifinal, while Cal Lutheran faces Whittier in the other.
• Tournament Central

2018 Tournament Champions: Pomona-Pitzer won its second conference tournament crown in a row with an 8-2 win over Cal Lutheran

2019 Regular Season Champion: Pomona-Pitzer went 14-0 to claim their second straight undefeated league crown

Notes

• LaVerne is making its first appearance in the SCIAC tournament since the league moved to a four-team format in 2018.
• Whittier received the #3 seed over LaVerne via a goal-differential tie breaker. Both were 9-5 in league action.
• Pomona-Pitzer has won nine of its last 10 games
• LaVerne’s Jassmine Kezman boasts a league-leading 81 goals, followed by Whittier’s Teresa Marchetti (58).

WWPA

• Site: SPiRE Institute; Geneva, Ohio
• All nine league teams participate in the conference tournament
• Tournament Central

2018 Tournament Champion: UC San Diego def. Cal State East Bay 12-2

2019 Regular Season Champion: UC San Diego claimed its sixth-straight conference title with a 4-0 league mark

Notes

• UCSD has won eight of its last nine matches. In league play, the Tritons have won 42 straight WWPA contests dating to the 2012 WWPA Championship final. UCSD is moving to the Big West Conference for the 2020 season.
• Fresno Pacific earned the #2 seed at 3-1, its highest ever seed in the league tournament
• Salem’s Annefleur ten Bloemendal and Margherita Garibbo are the league’s top scorers with 69 and 65 goals respectively.