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16-Teams to Battle for National Collegiate Club Championship at the University of Arizona this Weekend
TUCSON, Arizona – The nation’s best women’s collegiate club water polo teams will converge on the University of Arizona this weekend for the 2010 Women’s National Collegiate Club Championship hosted by the Collegiate Water Polo Association.
Bringing together teams from 13 divisions that span North America, the 16-team championship at Arizona’s Student Recreation Center Pool will determine which team is the best of the best and gets to bring home the honor of being the national champion.
A team to watch is No. 1-nationally ranked California Polytechnic State University as the two-time defending National Champions will seek to equal its mark from 2003-05 when the Mustangs captured three consecutive national titles. A five-time champion (2002, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009) and the 2010 Pacific Coast Division champion, Cal Poly has appeared in seven of the past eight title games defeating Michigan State University (2003), Dartmouth College (2004, 2005), the University of Oregon (2008) and the University of Notre Dame (2009), while falling to Michigan State (2002) and California State University-Fresno (2007), the equivalent of being the New York Yankees of women’s Collegiate Club Water Polo.
A player to watch for the Mustangs is Sarah Ur, as the two-time National Collegiate Club Player of the Year will seek the unprecedented honor of her third tournament Most Valuable Player of the Year award in only her junior season.
However, Ur and the Mustangs must get by 15 other teams, including the host Wildcats of Arizona, if Cal Poly wants to remain on top of the mountain.
One team striving to reach the pinnacle of the mountain will be the University of Notre Dame which was ranked No. 1 for most of the season and is coming off a runner-up finish at the 2009 Championship hosted by the University of California-Davis.
Notre Dame, which claimed the Midwest Division crown, and Cal Poly will need to overcome the champions of the Northwest (University of Oregon), Mid-Atlantic (University of Pennsylvania), Sierra Pacific (University of California-Santa Cruz), Southwest (University of Utah), Big Ten (University of Michigan), Texas (Texas A&M University), Southeast (University of Central Florida), North Atlantic (Middlebury College), New England (Boston College), Heartland (Illinois State University) and New York (New York University) Divisions, along with the runner-up finishers from the Midwest (Grand Valley State University) and Pacific Coast (University of California-Los Angeles) Divisions and the host Wildcats of Arizona.
The 32-game tournament will commence at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, April 23 for the first 12 games at the Arizona Student Recreation Center. On Saturday, the tournament continues at the Rec Center Pool beginning at 9:00 a.m. with 12 more games before Sunday and the championship round of eight games starting at 9:00 a.m. On Sunday, the 15th and 13th place games will be held at Hillenbrand Pool.
Ticket prices are $25 for a tournament pass to watch all 32-games and $13 for a day pass to witness one day of games. Children (12 & under) are free, while senior citizens pay the University of Arizona student/faculty/staff rate of $5 for a day pass and $12 for a tournament pass.
In addition, the 30-games at the Student Recreation Center Pool will be broadcast on Stretch Internet. Access to each individual contest through Stretch Internet costs $10 per event. Viewers can also purchase an individual tournament pass for $25 per sport which grants viewers access to every available broadcast during the weekend.
Fans can access the login site to reach the broadcasts by visiting the CWPA-Stretch Broadcasting site at: http://www.stretchinternet.com/cwpavideo.html
The largest single sport conference and the second largest collegiate athletic association in the world behind only the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the Collegiate Water Polo Association oversees more than 270 teams on the varsity and club level for both men and women around the country.
