Following a 13-12 defeat against No. 18 San José State on March 29, ASU water polo has fallen to No. 14 in the national rankings and has an uphill climb to finish the conference schedule.
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation boasts Stanford, USC, UCLA and Cal as the conference's four best, and all ranked top five nationally. To qualify for the NCAA tournament after the MPSF tournament, the Sun Devils need to beat a few of those top-ranked teams, but the numbers don’t paint a pretty picture.
ASU has gone 2-4 when facing a top-10 team, with wins over No. 10 LMU in January and No. 10 Indiana on March 22. In its other four matchups, the team is 0-4 with an average margin of defeat of seven goals.
ASU shot just 32.4% in those four games while averaging 54.5% in the other 19 games. Their opponents shot 42.3% in those four games while shooting 33.5% in the other 19 games. Exacerbating the issue is the amount of shots the Sun Devils allow in losses.
In its six losses, ASU has taken fewer shots in all but one the games. In wins, ASU allows an average of 26.3 shots per game opposed to 37.3 in the team's losses. The Sun Devils have found it difficult to beat elite teams when less efficient and taking fewer shots.
However, facing these top-ranked teams can help the Sun Devils get ready for the end of the year tournaments.
"The more harder games we have where it's more intense prepares us better, not just physically but mentally, knowing what we need to do to match up to them," said junior center Sophie Shorter-Robinson. "Harder games against Stanford and those teams before our conference champs at the end prepares us quite well."
ASU is 1-3 in MPSF play with losses to UCLA and Stanford, but had a compelling 16-11 win over No. 10 Indiana. In that game, the Sun Devils were able to turn defense into offense through a season-high 16 steals that spearheaded their transition play. More importantly, a week of rest helped them recuperate and look ahead to the season's end.
"We had spring break last week, so we were able to just put our heads down, work hard, train, just really fix some of those finer details," said junior attacker Millie Quin after the victory. "I think that served us well coming out here. We were all excited after the week off to really get things going."
The Sun Devils recently faced San José State, and head coach Petra Pardi was extremely unhappy with their play. Every game near the end of the season has playoff implications and the lack of energy and focus shown throughout the San José State loss wasn't lost on Pardi.
"It was absolutely internal," Pardi said after the loss. "Our defense was non-existent. We couldn't foul without getting turned on the perimeter."
The team hopes to make a statement in its final two regular season games against No. 5 Cal on April 5 and No. 1 USC on April 12.
"It's obviously hard, like they're harder teams, so you got to really raise the intensity to meet and match those teams," Shorter-Robinson said.
Edited by Jack Barron, Sophia Ramirez and Katrina Michalak.
Reach the reporter at pvallur2@asu.edu and follow @PrathamValluri on X.
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Pratham is a sophomore studying sports journalism with a minor in business. This is his fourth semester with The State Press.
