With a 7-4 victory against No. 2 UCLA in the NCAA championship game on Sunday, the Trojans (24-3, 8-0) went down in the record books, becoming the first men’s water polo team to win four consecutive national titles.

Seven different players scored each of USC’s goals, and thanks to an early 5-0 run by the Trojans, the team held back the Bruins and won another NCAA crown at the Spieker Aquatics Complex in Berkeley, Calif.

“This game today was just unbelievable,” USC coach Jovan Vavic said. “It was one of those games where everything went our way. Defense was great. Our best players played the best water polo. Joel [Dennerley] was on top; they really couldn’t score on him. It was a great team effort.”

The Bruins kicked off the game with the first of their four goals, a shot from utility Josh Samuels with three minutes left in the first frame. USC responded with two quick goals, however, making the score 2-1 entering the second quarter. Even in a game riddled with exclusion penalties from both teams, the second quarter marked the accumulation of the Trojan’s five unanswered goals. UCLA got back on track with 2:29 left in the half with another shot from Samuels, but the score was still in favor of USC by halftime, 5-2.

Minutes into the third quarter, a yellow card was ordered on Vavic. A dry third quarter made way for a USC goal from freshman driver Kostas Genidounias with 1:30 left. UCLA came back, notching a goal with 20 seconds left in the third. The teams went into the fourth quarter with the Trojans up, 6-3.

A quick pass from senior driver Peter Kurzeka to sophomore driver Jeremy Davie, who notched a goal, quickly increased USC’s lead to 7-3 in the fourth. UCLA’s Brett Hays scored with 4:19 left in the fourth, forcing the Trojans to call a timeout. With the score 7-4 and only four minutes left, the Trojans managed to maintain the score and, with the USC fans in the crowd chanting “four-peat” in the background, grabbed their fourth straight national title.

Kurzeka and senior goalie Joel Dennerley, now proud owners of four national title rings, one for each year they have played on the USC team, led the team to its victory over the Bruins.

“I am so proud of these guys, and proud of Peter and Joel as seniors and leaders of this team,” Vavic said. “We are going to miss them. It’s going to be tough to replace them. It’s gonna be, actually, impossible to replace them.”

Dennerley ended the game with 15 saves and the NCAA tournament MVP award. His efforts were applauded by Vavic immensely.

“We helped [Dennerley] out by playing really good defense … but I think after Joel makes a couple of big saves early in the game, it usually gets in your head,” Vavic said. “As a shooter you don’t want to shoot the ball anymore. The arm gets heavy and you start thinking about it.  You could see that the UCLA players were thinking about it.”

Dennerley, however, gave even much of the credit to the defensive effort as a whole.

“We had a great system and the situations that UCLA prepared for us, we had solutions for them so the credit goes to the defense,” he said. “They did their job and I did mine, and we got the win.”

Kurzeka’s assists also proved crucial, and carried the offense to goals from seven different players. Kurzeka and sophomore driver Nikola Vavic were placed on the NCAA Tournament First Team as well, while sophomore two-meter Jeremy Davie earned a spot on the Second Team.

Vavic now holds 10 national championships as a water polo coach for USC, seven with the Trojans and three with the women’s team.

With this victory, the Trojans have won a national title five times in the last seven years they have made an appearance in the NCAA championship tournament. With their hopes now transformed into reality, the Trojans look toward the future with even bigger goals.

“It’s hard enough to make it out of this conference to a four-team tournament,” Kurzeka said. “On a big scale we did realize that but hopefully they can go for five, I am fully backing them.”

Four years ago, when Kurzeka walked away with his first NCAA title with the team as a freshman, he hugged his coach and told him the team would do that three more times. Vavic scoffed then, and asked Kurzeka if he knew how difficult it was to win even one national title. For a team so accustomed to winning, maybe he didn’t.

Cal couldn’t capitalize on its last possession in regulation to break the 10-10 tie and win at its home pool yesterday. Nor could the team shape up in overtime, missing two power play opportunities and carelessly turning the ball over twice.

USC outlasted the Bears, who didn’t score in the final 11 minutes of play, in overtime by scoring two goals to finish out the match, 12-10.

“That’s how these games work, they are an inch here and an inch there, and they got the inches,” the Bears’ Cal head coach Kirk Everist said. “Obviously, we’re disappointed, I don’t know how much more than that I can say.”

Ivan Rackov gave the Bears a 10-9 lead with 5:02 left in the fourth quarter, but fellow junior Luka Saponjic committed a foul that gave tournament MVP Peter Kurzeka a five meter penalty shot with 3:58 left in regulation to tie the game up.

The match was a series of back-and-forths, with neither team ever leading by more than two goals.

The third quarter scoring frenzy had nine scores total, with four by the Bears and five by the Trojans — an average of more than one goal per minute.

“Cal never gave us a break, anytime it seemed like we were going to pull away and win it, they came back and really pushed us to the limit,” USC head coach Jovan Vavic said. “These games always come down to desire, when you have a great desire, you’re not tired.”

Cal had a few hitches in its Saturday game against LMU as well, trailing in the fourth until Cory Nasoff tied it up at 7-7 with 3:50 left in the match. Senior center Zach White scored the go-ahead goal with 2:41 and goalie Justin Parsons made three crucial saves in the fourth period to keep the Lions at bay.

Additionally, freshman Max Bergeson stepped up big to salvage the game, scoring two goals.

“That really helped us out,” Everist said in an interview with Calbears.com. “Max came in and really lit a fire under us generating offense and making (LMU goalie) Andy (Stevens) start to honor our shots.”

Stevens, the back-up goalie on the national team and a huge fan of the Dikembe Mutombo finger wag, had 12 saves — including one on a penalty shot by Rackov.

Stevens’ stellar play in the cage combined with poor execution on the part of the Bears, who went 3-for-9 on their power plays.

LMU went on to trump St. Francis, 9-7, in the third-place match that was nowhere near as close as the final score would suggest.

The Lions leaped out to a 6-1 lead and coasted the rest of the way.

“To have the tournament here (at Spieker) is kind of a natural considering the history and tradition of water polo at this school,” Bears head coach Kirk Everist said. “To have the opportunity with a team that has that kind of ability is an opportunity that we can hopefully take advantage of.”

At the start of this year, Cal is the favorite to capture that title at home – having secured the top ranking in the Preseason Collegiate Top 20 Water Polo Poll. 2010 will be a chance for the Bears to jump back into the postseason falling short last year. Cal advanced to the finals of the MPSF Tournament as the third seed before falling to No. 4 UCLA, 10-7.

“The team got pretty close so that’s in their memory,” Everist said. “We got a decent amount of experience from last year and I think we’re all optimistic that this team has a chance at playing for a national championship.”

While Cal two lost key seniors to graduation last year – four time All-American Spencer ex-team captain Mike Sample – the team has a lot of experience coming back.

Key players returning from last year’s team include seniors Brian Dudley and Zach White, and juniors Ivan Rackov, and Cory Nasoff. All four are All-Americans. Also returning are junior attackers Charlie Steffens and Luka Saponjic, as well as junior goalie Wil Toppen.

Dudley and Steffens share the responsibility of captain this year. In 23 matches last year, Dudley scored 18 goals, while also recording 40 steals, and 24 assists. Steffens scored 24 goals, had 28 steals, and had 44 assists to go with seven field blocks.

The Bears also have some incoming young talent that could spell the team’s key veterans. As many as five freshmen could crack the rotation: Giacomo Cupido of Italy, Perry Short of Australia, and a trio of first-team high school All-Americans.

“I think it’s a good mix of young and old,” Everist said. “The younger players are bringing a lot of energy and a sense of urgency to the group and we’ve got good senior leadership with Brian Dudley and Charlie Steffens.”

If Cal wants to stay on top in such a loaded MPSF conference, lead they must. USC has won the championship the last two years, while Stanford and UCLA are major competitors, as well. The Bruins and Cardinal trail the Bears with 10 and eight titles, respectively.

With just four slots in the NCAA postseason bracket – half of them traditionally occupied by MPSF teams – performing at a high level in the powerhouse conference will be important for Cal.

“Our conference is pretty brutal,” Everist said. “Every team can beat you on a given day if you’re not prepared.”

Everist, entering his ninth year coaching for the Bears, will be the one to keep the team focused. Having led Cal to four titles – two as coach and two as a player – his experience is crucial for success.

“There’s a lot of work to be done in between (now and the NCAAs) but it’s a talented group and a team that’s worked really hard, so expectations are high,” he said.

Stanford began the weekend Friday afternoon with a blowout win over Pomona-Pitzer. It started the first period with an impressive 7-0 lead, sending a clear message that the Card meant business, especially after its loss to UCLA two weeks ago.

By the end of the second period, the Cardinal was ahead 21-2, with the end result determined before the game had even ended.

The final score was 23-3; it was a brutal defeat for Pomona, and several Cardinal players shined in the win.

Freshman goalkeeper Kate Baldoni had a total of five saves. Sophomore two-meter offense Alex Koran and sophomore two-meter offense Melissa Seidemann each smashed four goals into the goal. Freshman two-meter offense Annika Dries, sophomore driver Alyssa Lo, junior driver Kim Krueger, sophomore driver Pallavi Menon and senior driver Kelsey Holshouser each skipped in two goals. Sophomore driver Cassie Churnside, freshman driver Vee Dunlevie and freshman driver Jillian Garton each scored a single goal.

After dominating its match on Friday, the Cardinal continued the tournament by facing off against rival California on Saturday.

The Cardinal led the Golden Bears by one after the first period, but by halftime, both teams were tied at three.

Stanford put its foot down during the third and fourth periods, not letting Cal score a single point, for a final score of 6-3.

Junior goalkeeper Amber Oland saved an incredible 12 shots throughout the match. Seidemann smashed in two goals of her own, while Churnside, Koran, Krueger and Menon each tacked on an additional goal.

Saturday’s win advanced Stanford to the NCAA championship game yesterday, where it met USC, a team that it had already triumphed over twice this season.

Early in the season at the Stanford Invitational, the Cardinal was victorious against USC with a 10-7 win. Later that month, the Cardinal faced off with the Trojans once more at the Irvine Invitational and lost 10-6. In late April, the Cardinal earned its top spot back by stealing a win against USC with a final score of 7-6.

Now, the Cardinal and Trojans faced off again, this time for the National Collegiate Women’s Water Polo Championship.
The Cardinal got off to a slow start in the match, ending the second period with only three points, while the Trojans led with six. The next half of the match, however, the Cardinal stepped up its game, barely trailing behind USC as the Cardinal scored a total of six points during the last two periods.

Stanford looked to be out of contention when the Trojans had a 10-6 lead with less than three minutes remaining. The Cardinal responded with three goals in 96 seconds to put the pressure on USC.

In the final 10 seconds of the game, Dries missed a shot in Stanford’s last chance to tie, leaving the score at 10-9.

Senior driver Kelly Eaton led the Cardinal with four goals, all on penalties. Krueger had two goals, while Churnside, Dries and Lo each skipped in a single goal, as well. Furthermore, Oland had a total of seven saves throughout the match.

Stanford came remarkably close to pulling even, as Seidemann had three shots hit the post, but the Cardinal had to settle for second. This is the fifth time in the 10-year history of NCAA women’s water polo that Stanford has been the national runner-up.

Her third-ranked U. California women’s water polo team just capped off a fairly easy weekend of play with a pair of victories at the Pacific Invitational. Yet all the Bears’ driver can do is point out missed opportunities from a match that had few conference or national implications.

“We definitely could have played a lot better,” she says.

As Champion finds flaws in a 6-0 halftime lead, her competitiveness and yearning to improve are striking.

Upon discovering the depth of Remy’s water polo pedigree, one would expect little else. If anything, the thought of her being bribed with stuffed animals as an 11-year-old just to take up the sport seems even more unthinkable.

Champion is still amused by it today.

“My parents would … give me a Beanie Baby for every practice I went to,” she says. I really had no desire to try it. I mostly got into it because my sisters got into it.”

Growing up with a trio of accomplished water polo players as siblings, Remy’s resistance was short lived.

Each of her sisters left an indelible mark on her game as she moved from high school star and Junior Olympic All-American to one of the senior leaders on a veteran-laden Cal squad.

“The success that my sisters had always motivated me to do the same-that was what I aspired to,” Remy says.

Early on, those aspirations involved sprinting across the pool-only not to chase after a Mikasa ball in the center.

Remy spent much of her early childhood in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she and her sisters naturally gravitated towards the water.

“(Swimming) started as a water safety thing, then it turned into a exercise thing, and then it became a competitive thing,” her oldest sister Laurel recalls.

At home, Remy could hardly have picked a better role model than her oldest sister Haley, who established the family’s athletic legacy among Palo Alto High’s aquatics programs.

A three-time team MVP at Palo Alto, Haley eventually swam for perennial power Stanford after leaving high school with three school records, a pair of Central Coast Section titles and a slew of All-America honors.

She played three years of club water polo, but it was her swimming prowess to which Remy aspired. As it turned out, swimming and water polo were far more complementary for Remy than they were mutually exclusive.

Her quickness in the pool, developed from years of emulating Haley, helped Palo Alto earn a CCS swimming title. That same mobility perfectly suited her for an attacking role in water polo and gave Remy an advantage over her peers.

“(Her swimming background) really enabled her to have good balance in the water,” Haley says. “So while most people were struggling to learn how to swim, her foundation allowed her to work on other important skills.”

Laurel calls Remy a water polo ‘fanatic.’

As a varsity mainstay for Palo Alto, Remy rarely missed the opportunity to catch live or televised games, and attended at least a dozen Stanford-hosted camps.

On Saturday mornings, a time when kids her age usually avoid educational institutions, she entered her school pool with a copied key to perfect her shooting.

She attributes some of her most valuable playing qualities to Laurel, a two-time varsity captain and four-time all-league pick who moved on to play two-meter defense for the Cardinal.

Remy had always looked to replicate her older sister’s uncanny ability, at any point, to recognize the shot and game clocks, as well as the position of the ball, the defender, and the goalie.

“The way Laurel played was very smart and intelligent. She was always very aware,” Remy says. “She was a player who knew the game very well. You can tell through the way she played, and I really wanted to be like that.”

If Remy’s older siblings provided tutelage and inspiration during her formative playing years, playing with her younger sister Phoebe would help ignite her competitive fire.

Just one year apart in age, the girls made a splash in their three high school seasons together. They each added a League MVP award and four All-League selections to their large collection of accolades.

Despite covering different positions, the pair forged a unique familiarity in the pool.

“We would always try to set up each other,” Phoebe says. “We’ve been playing together for so long that I’d always know where (Remy) would be.”

The same connection that made the sisters such perfect complements during matches also helped drive their friendly but intense rivalry.

“I remember (us) playing on counter-attacks during practice,” Remy says. “Sometimes the play would already have been over, but me and her were still trying cut each other off.

“Our teammates thought it was hilarious, and our coach was glad that we were being so aggressive. We just felt like we kind of had to prove ourselves.”

The competition was put on hold for a few years, with Remy in Berkeley and Phoebe opting to play for Princeton, where the youngest Champion climbed to seventh on the all-time scoring list in just three years.

Earlier this month in San Diego, their rivalry was renewed when Cal took on the Tigers at the Aztec Invitational. Remy smirks as she talks about getting better of her sister in their first collegiate matchup.

“It was really fun to play Phoebe since we ended up guarding each other a little bit more than expected,” Remy says. “She definitely tried to post me up in set and counter me, but I shut her down.”

Meanwhile, Phoebe brags about having beaten Remy in a sprint for the ball that afternoon, throwing in a playful “Take that!” at the end.

“It’s always a healthy rivalry, though, and it really raised our level of competition,” says Phoebe.

She still considers her older sister to be one of the hardest-working athlete she knows. An athlete whose family shaped her game and her undying competitive instinct-the kind of instinct that leaves Remy unsatisfied with a 6-0 halftime advantage.

“It should have been at least 8-0,” she says.

Would you expect anything else from a Champion?