The 2026 SCIAC Women’s Water Polo Tournament will begin on Tuesday, Apr. 14 at 7 p.m. with the First Round matchup between #4 seed Chapman University and #5 seed Whittier College, the winner of which will face #1 Pomona-Pitzer Colleges while #2 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges host #3 California Lutheran University in the other semifinal.
Tournament Central
Now five-time regular season and four-time tournament champion Pomona-Pitzer went unbeaten in conference play for a sixth straight season dating back through 2018. Thanks to both the highest-scoring offense (18.7 goals per game) and stingiest defense (4.8 allowed per game), the Sagehens turned away every challenger including runner-up CMS twice,
12-11 in their second SCIAC game of the sprint and
10-5 to close out the regular season with Cal Lutheran the only other team to keep the final margin in single digits (
10-5).
Mia Amberger paced a balanced scoring attack with 19 assists while a three-goalkeeper rotation of
Ella Debenham,
Vivienne Wood and
Isabella Dova all ranked among the top eight in the conference in save percentage.
Second-seeded CMS earned the tiebreaker over CLU with both teams ending the regular season at 10-2 by virtue of a
12-4 victory on Mar. 21. Both squads statistically separated themselves from the rest of the conference with
Grace Clark and
Isabel Del Villar ranking third and seventh in points, respectively, while
Valerie Wraith and
Jordan LaCour both appeared in the top 10 for goals and
Caitlin Munoz topped the assists leaderboard.
Lauren Lohmeier led the conference on 34 goals for Cal Lutheran with rookie
Aleaha Gonzales also ranking eighth. The trio of
Chloe Gardhouse,
Sophie Raquel and
Kelsee Espitia fed both scorers a combined 53 assists while graduate student goalkeeper
Izzy de Souza’s .616 save percentage ranked top of the league among those with at least 40 saves.
Chapman’s hopes will be pinned to the star power of
Kendall Pappan, who led the tournament field in points (46), and
Zoey Francis, who made a league-high 28 steals while racking up 111 saves. The Panthers swept Whittier in both regular season contests,
15-10 and
13-3. Whittier’s
Alexandra Haluska tied for third in points over the regular season while
Aubrie Kirkby Tatro finished second in saves with 114.
The final game will be played on Saturday, Apr. 18 at 11 a.m. on the campus of the highest remaining seed.
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