Top-seed Cal Men's Water Polo hosts NCAA Championship this weekend
Cal Crew's Gennaro di Mauro set new world record; Cal Rugby won their 9th PAC 7s title.
Cherry-picking the best of Cal Olympic Sports, this week’s post will highlight the three programs that won team national championships this past school year and are poised to repeat, in addition to the most successful program in Cal Athletics.
No.1 and defending NCAA champion Cal Men’s Water Polo seeks the program’s 16th NCAA title this weekend from the Bear Territory that is Spieker Aquatic Complex. Italian Calympian Gennaro di Mauro of the defending IRA Champion Cal Men’s Rowing set a new rowing machine record. Cal Rugby closed their 7s Fall season with another PAC title. Finally, defending NCAA champion Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving got boosts from the return of Spanish Calympian Hugo Gonzalez and the arrival of freshman diver Joshua Thai.
Cal Men’s Water Polo goes for NCAA title No.16
NCAA Semifinal: 2 PM PT, Saturday, December 3rd - No.1 Cal vs. Pacific/UC Davis
NCAA Final: 3 PM PT, Sunday, December 4th - vs. UCLA/USC/Princeton
Where: Spieker Aquatics Complex (Berkeley, CA)
TV: ESPNU (Final)
Online: WatchESPN
Cal (21-2) took 3rd place at the MPSF Championship 1.5 weeks ago. While the Golden Bears lost for only the second time in the MPSF semifinal to rival Stanford, Cal defeated UCLA (22-4) in the 3rd place match. Unlike most years, where the MPSF tournament results are important to secure an at-large bid, Cal’s place in the NCAA Championship was essentially already wrapped by the perfect 3-0 regular season record over USC, UCLA, and Stanford.
USC (18-6) eventually won the MPSF automatic bid by winning the conference tournament in their home pool over Stanford. Cal, as the top overall seed, and UCLA, as the No.2 overall seed, took the two at-large bids in the 2022 NCAA Men’s Water Polo championship bracket.
Cal will face the December 1st winner between Pacific (21-6) and UC Davis (19-7) in one semifinal. Assuming that USC will beat Princeton (27-5), who defeated Fordham in the opening round, the two LA schools will vie for the other championship final berth.
Interestingly, the only team to beat the Cal Bears twice in this 2022 season is not in the championship field. Stanford, who beat Cal twice in tournament play, also lost to the Cal Bears in the Big Splash 18-12, where the Steve Heaston Trophy is at stake. Check out the Pac-12 Network highlights of the Big Splash below.
The defending NCAA champion Cal will look to extend their record of NCAA Men’s Water Polo championship titles to 16. Golden Bears will be seeking a champion repeat for the first time since 2006 and 2007.
Cal Bears are led by the reigning Peter Cutino Award winner Nikolaos Papanikolaou. “Papa” is looking to be the first Cal repeat winner of the Cutino Award, the equivalent of Water Polo’s Heisman. This achievement is almost certainly intrinsically coupled with Cal’s team outcome this weekend.
Papanikolaou is 2nd on the team with 53 goals, but 1st on the team, conference, (and most likely) country in drawing exclusions and power play opportunities with 70. Next Fall, the Greek center should be back for his 5th season, granted to everyone due to COVID, ahead of helping his native Greece to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
“Papa” already reached the rare 200 career goals plateau a few weeks ago.
Also recognized by the conference is Cal head coach Kirk Everist. Everist earned his 3rd MPSF Coach of the Year honor.
Joining Papa on the MPSF First-Team are Cal’s leading scorer Max Casabella, starting goalkeeper standout Adrian Weinberg, and leading assist man Jack Deely. Roberto Valera is named to the MPSF Second-Team. Marko Valecic and Warren Loth got All-MPSF Honor Mention honors.
Against the remaining NCAA Championship teams, Cal Bears are 1-0 vs. Pacific (16-15, OT on September 9th), 1-0 vs. UC Davis (16-12 on October 12th), 2-0 vs. USC (11-10 on September 25th, 14-10 on October 15th), 2-0 vs. UCLA (10-9, OT on October 29th, 7-6 on November 20th in MPSF 3rd place match), and 1-0 vs. Princeton (22-7 on September 4th).
As the top-seed, Cal Bears are in a fairly comfortable spot with the draw. Then again, Bears will have to live up to the expectation of both being the top seed and having the home pool advantage. Cal also won the NCAA title back in 2016, when they last hosted the NCAA Championship.
Golden Bears have the talent, experience, AND history behind them this weekend.
Italian Calympian Gennaro di Mauro of Cal Men’s Rowing set a new World Record
While we are still months to go before Cal Men’s Rowing has the opportunity to achieve their own championship defense at the IRA Championship around Memorial Day, Cal sophomore Gennaro di Mauro showed that the Bears might be better than last year.
The Tokyo Italian “Calympian” put on a show on the rowing machine.
New 6000m World Record courtesy of Gennaro di Mauro ‘25.
GO. BEARS. 🐻
He rowed 6000m in 18:11.2 minutes for an unofficial (as far as I can tell) but nonetheless extremely impressive world record.
Gennaro di Mauro was a major part of Cal’s championship-winning Varsity Eight boat this past Spring. Barring injury, he will likely be even stronger comes next Spring semester.
As a 19-year-old, di Mauro impressed the rowing world with an 8th-place overall finish at the Tokyo Olympics in single scull. One can only imagine how much better he will be by the end of his collegiate career as his body matures more.
Cal Rugby cruised to another PAC Rugby 7s title
The main event for Cal Rugby’s Fall 7s season is the PAC 7s, hosted by Stanford on November 14th-15th this year. As expected, Golden Bears rolled through the competition in group play, downing Stanford 58-0, Utah 39-0, and Oregon 38-7.
Cal had little trouble against UCLA in the semifinal, winning 32-0. The Bears capped their 9th PAC Rugby 7s title in 10 years with a 31-5 victory in the final over Arizona.
Using a roster with a nice mix of players from all classes, Kealan O’Connell was named the tournament MVP for scoring 33 points. What was arguably even more impressive was how the Bears only allowed two tries in five games.
Cal Rugby just released their XVs schedule on Wednesday.
Cal will host defending champ Army and play at Navy (recently promoted their program to varsity status), at St. Mary’s, and at BYU. Noticeable absent from the schedule is the home-and-home against the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, a once-storied rivalry that became a victim of UBC being forced to field a much more mature squad due to their non-Cal opponents.
It is also not clear if Cal will compete in any rugby 7s championship this spring. Cal has opted to skip that for the past two seasons, but perhaps the pandemic was to be blamed. The Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC), which Cal has won five-times, has moved their tournament up in the schedule to the end of April and relocated once again to the Washington, DC suburb. USA Rugby might be holding a different rugby 7s championship this spring as well.
It would appear that Cal’s preference is to have rugby 7s, the format being played in the Olympic Games currently, solely in the fall, and the 15s in the spring. We shall see if the Golden Bears announce any 7s plan at the end of the 15s season. Cal Rugby is currently in a rare 15s championship drought, having last won the 15s title back in 2017 in the final year of the Varsity Cup. To be clear, there were only been three 15s championships held since then due to the pandemic, but Cal Bears lost to Life in both 2018 and 2019.
Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving gets a couple of boosts ahead of another Spring showdown vs. Texas
Set for yet another showdown with Texas this spring is Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving. The two squads are battling this week from the Minnesota Invitational, but expect both teams to drop plenty of time between now and the 2023 NCAA Championships.
Between now and then, Cal will gain a major point-scorer in the return of Spanish “Calympian” Hugo Gonzalez. Gonzalez opted to stay in his native Spain this Fall but will rejoin the Cal Bears for the spring semester.
The 23-year-old European champion confirmed that he would be coming back to Berkeley this season on Monday, further bolstering a Cal team that has already been penciled in as the favorites by many to repeat as NCAA champions.
Gonzalez explained the gratitude he feels towards the program for giving him a place to thrive, and is looking to help give the team a boost at his final NCAAs.
“I think I’d have quit swimming at some point after my freshman year and I’m forever grateful for the opportunity Cal gave me,” Gonzalez told SwimSwam. “So it’s one last opportunity to help Cal score points at the NCAA Championships.”
He will be using the fifth year of college eligibility that all athletes competing in the 2020-21 collegiate season were granted.
Gonzalez is coming off a massively successful senior season, having won his first individual national title in the 400 IM, shattering the NCAA and U.S. Open Records in a time of 3:32.88. He also placed 5th in the 200 IM and 10th in the 200 breast to rank third on Cal with 41 individual points, and he also swam a leg on the Bears’ third-place finishing 400 free relay.
Cal also got breaststroker Reece Whitley back as a 5th-year this season. Nonetheless, the Bears graduated plenty of NCAA Championship points with the departure of Daniel Carr, Sean Grieshop, Trenton Julian, and Bryce Mefford.
However, expect steady improvements from returning stars Bjorn Seeliger and Destin Lasco. Cal should also get breakout seasons from the talented sophomore class of Jack Alexy, Gabriel Jett, and Swedish “Calympian” Robin Hanson.
Cal also added a USA Tokyo Olympian in Patrick Callan as a graduate transfer from Michigan. Callan gives the Bears another mid-distance swimmer (500y Free, 200y Free) and fills a leg in the 800y Free Relay. Bora Unalmis also joined the Bears from Michigan as a graduate transfer.
One of the reasons why Cal won the NCAA title last year was due to an unexpected drop in Texas Diving. Texas Longhorns diving will likely rebound this school year. With new diving coach Pei Lin at Cal, Cal Diving will hopefully be a factor at the NCAA soon, more than just having an appearance.
Freshman Joshua Thai has already qualified for the NCAA Qualifying Meet in all three diving events after just one diving event on the year. Joshua Thai is the younger brother of former Cal Women’s Diver Briana Thai. Briana Thai had represented Cal at the NCAA twice but did not score any points.
It should be yet another exciting week of racing between Cal and Texas at the NCAA: March 21-25, 2023 from Minneapolis, MN.
GO BEARS!
NCAA Men's Water Polo quarterfinals update:
Pacific defeats UC Davis 11-7. Cal will face Pacific in one semifinal.
USC defeats Princeton 11-8. UCLA will face USC in the other semifinal.
As Jane Coaston said on twiter, (di Mauro) looked into the void and winked. He went UNDER his average for the last 500m. Amazing.