The ASU water polo team will go for a conference title this weekend as it welcomes the rest of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation to the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center for the 2007 MPSF Championships.
The stakes will be high for all teams competing as an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships will be up for grabs.
The winner of the tournament will be crowned as the MPSF champion and will then head to Los Alamitos, Calif., May 11 to 13 to compete in the NCAA tournament.
Meanwhile, the teams that do not come out on top this weekend will have to rely on an at-large bid to have the chance to compete for a national title.
The tournament will feature some of the nation's top teams as No. 1 Stanford, No. 2 UCLA, No. 3 USC, No. 4 Hawaii, No. 5 San Diego State, No. 6 California, No. 7 San Jose State, No. 10 UC Irvine, No. 13 UC Santa Barbara, No. 14 Long Beach State and No. 20 Cal State Northridge will all invade Tempe this weekend.
The No. 11 Sun Devils have been rolling as of late, as they have won eight of their last 10 games and will look to continue that trend this weekend.
The Sun Devils begin their tournament run as the No. 8 seed today at 3:20 p.m., when they face No. 9 seed UC Irvine for the second time this month.
The Sun Devils beat the Anteaters, 11-7, in their final regular season home game on April 15.
The game against UCI will also mark the fourth year in a row the teams have faced each other in the MPSF Championships.
The Sun Devils are 3-0 against the Anteaters in the conference tournament, including a 13-12 victory last season, a 9-7 win in 2005 and an 8-5 victory in 2004.
If the Sun Devils can beat UCI again, they will play top-seeded Stanford Friday at 11:20 a.m. If they lose to the Anteaters, they will play SDSU, UCSB, Pacific or Hawaii on Saturday at 9 a.m.
The action from the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center starts today at 10 a.m., with No. 4 seed Hawaii taking on No. 13 seed Pacific. The tournament runs through Sunday afternoon.
Other games taking place today include No. 5 seed San Diego State against No. 12 seed UCSB at 11:20 a.m., No. 6 seed SJSU against No. 11 seed CS Northridge at 12:40 p.m., and No. 7 California against No. 10 seed LBSU at 2 p.m.
Reach the reporter at: gina.mizell@asu.edu.
