It has been an uphill battle for the No. 11 ASU water polo team all season, a trend that will likely continue when the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships start today.
The No. 11 Sun Devils (13-11, 5-7 MPSF) will head into the conference tournament with the seventh seed, thanks to their upset victory of San Diego State last weekend.
The tournament is hosted by UC Irvine and will run through Sunday. Of the 13 teams competing, 12 are ranked in the top 20 and 10 are ranked within the top 11 nationally.
"All the teams in conference championships are tough and we have to come out with the same kind of effort and energy that we had [Saturday]," coach Todd Clapper said.
ASU will begin its run at the conference crown today when it faces No. 10 seed Long Beach State at 1:45 p.m. Long Beach State (15-12, 4-8 MPSF) comes into the tournament having won six of its last nine games and is ranked 10th nationally.
"We're going into the tournament really focused on that one game," Clapper said. "We have some unfinished business with them."
The game against Long Beach State will be a rematch from earlier in the season when ASU fell 7-6 in overtime. The Sun Devils took a 5-2 lead into halftime but was unable to close out the victory.
This time ASU will enter the game brimming with confidence. Not only are the Sun Devils coming off their fourth upset of the year last weekend, but goalie Caylinn Wallace won last week's MPSF player of the week.
The honor was the third of the year for ASU, with freshmen Rowie Webster and Addison Doud picking up the honor earlier in the season.
"Our strength is probably, at the moment, just our will power," Webster said. "We're motivated to keep going even though we might be down."
The Sun Devils will need to be tough if they hope to make their way through the daunting tournament.
"I'm feeling good about the tournament," Webster said. "I hope we can get a few more wins on the board."
If ASU can beat Long Beach State on Thursday, then they will face second-ranked UCLA on Friday.
"I'm hoping this year we can end it off with a really good run," senior Tessa Wyborny said.
Reach the reporter at william.hayes@asu.edu.
