INDIANAPOLIS --- The NCAA Women's Water Polo Committee has announced the teams that will participate in the 2011 National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship.
The championship will be held May 13-15 at the Canham Natatorium, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The University of Michigan will serve as the host institution.
The 2011 National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship will be an eight-team, single-elimination tournament with a losers' bracket to determine places three through eight.
Automatic qualifiers were awarded to the Big West Conference (University of California, Irvine), Collegiate Water Polo Association (University of Indiana, Bloomington), Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (University of California, Berkeley) and the Western Water Polo Association (University of California, San Diego). In addition, the conference representatives from the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletics Conference (University of Redlands) and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Iona College) will conduct a play-in game to determine the last automatic berth into the bracket. The following institutions received at-large bids to the championship field: University of California, Los Angeles; University of Southern California and Stanford University.
The play-in game will be conducted May 7 at the Greenwich Family YMCA in Greenwich, Connecticut.
The No. 1 seed was awarded to Stanford (25-1) and the No. 2 seed was awarded to California (24-4). California will face No. 7 seed UC San Diego (17-18) on May 13 in the first game of the championship at 3 p.m. The next game will feature No. 3 seed, UCLA (24-6) and No. 6 seed Indiana (25-11) at 4:30 p.m. Stanford will face the winner of the play-in game in the third game of the day at 6 p.m. The final contest of the night will pit No. 5 seed UC Irvine (21-8) against No. 4 seed Southern California (18-6) at 7:30 p.m.
