REDLANDS, Calif. – Following the University of Redlands Men's Water Polo team's win over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) this past Saturday, the Bulldogs earned a share of the 2023 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Regular Season Championship but lost the tiebreaker and are now the No. 2 seed in the SCIAC Tournament. They will host No. 3 Pomona-Pitzer in the Semi-Finals on Friday, November 17 at 7:00 p.m. inside the Thompson Aquatic Center (TAC).

Tickets can be purchased prior to the game online for $10 for adults or for the same price at the entry of the TAC, cash only for the onsite tickets. Children under 12 are free as are SCIAC students, faculty, and staff with valid institutional ID. The game will be live streamed, there will be live stats as well, and here is the game program.

Redlands
The Bulldogs finished the regular season 20-8, 11-1 SCIAC. They are 10-3 at the TAC and have won all six of their SCIAC games at home this season.

Offensively Redlands is led by Andrew Higginson (San Diego, CA) who scored a team-high 62 goals and assisted on another 13 for 75 points. Dean Moody (Camarillo, CA) led the team with 83 points as he scored the second most goals with 56 and led the team with 27 assists.

Higginson had 32 goals during SCIAC play, good for fourth most, and he is sixth in points with 37. Moody is sixth in scoring with 25 and he also sits fifth with 39 points. The Bulldogs have the second most players inside the Top-10 for assists with three: Ron Gvishi (Kiryat Tivon, Israel) (16, 5^th), Nicolas Fedotov (Miami Beach, FL) (16, 5^th), and Spencer Sellwood (Irvine, CA) (15, 8^th). Gvishi's assist total helps him sit eighth in points with 34.

The Bulldogs are tied with the California Institute of Technology with three players inside the Top-10 in field blocks with three: Gvishi (7, 3^rd), Alec Abrahamian (Glendale, CA) (7, 3^rd), and Fedotov (5, 9^th). Other notable field player stats include Gvishi and Moody sitting third and sixth, respectively in sprint win percentage at .769 (3^rd) and .556 (6^th).

In goal Roberto Barerra (Guanajuato, Mexico) missed four games as he played for the Mexican National team at the Pan-American Games, but he still managed to make 81 saves (4^th), record the second best save percentage at .596, and the third lowest goal against average (GAA) at 6.79. From a per game basis, he is second in saves per game at 10.1 and tied for ninth among all players in steals per game at 1.5.

From a defensive field player perspective, Spencer Clinton (Cypress, CA) leads the Bulldogs with 21 drawn exclusions and also has 14 steals. Overall, four players have drawn double-digit exclusions: Moody (15), Higginson (13), and Fedotov (12). Gvishi leads with 27 steals with Higginson second with 26, Barerra third with 24, Fedotov fourth with 23, and Sellwood fifth with 22.

Pomona-Pitzer
The Sagehens finished third in the conference standings at 14-17, 9-3 SCIAC. In true road games they went 5-3 including a 5-1 mark inside SCIAC.

Offensively they are led by Zach Whitfield who scored 48 goals and assisted on 20 more for 68 points. Chase Barman leads the team in total goal contributions with 70, 42 goals and 28 assists. The Sagehens third 40-goal scorer is Kyle Green who has 44 goals, second most. Green also has 18 assists, the fifth most.

Defensively they have nine players with double-digit drawn exclusions and five with 20 plus steals. Conrad Hugar leads the Sagehens with 32 drawn exclusions.  Whitfield has a team-high 41 steals while Green has 30.

In SCIAC play Whitfield is the lone player for Pomona-Pitzer inside the Top-10 offensively as he sits fifth with 16 assists. Barman, though, is fourth in sprint win percentage at .647 and fourth in sprints won with 11. On the defensive end in SCIAC play Green ranks sixth in steals with 18.

In goal Liam Byrne sits eighth in saves with 68, sixth in GAA at 10.16, sixth in save percentage at .469, and sixth in goalkeeper steals with 18. Byrne also averages 6.8 saves per game, the ninth highest.

Head-to-Head
Since 2006 the Bulldogs lead the series 19-17. At the TAC the Bulldogs hold an 8-6 record, but they have only won one of their previous four meetings.

In 2023 the Bulldogs won both matchups. They won 15-13 (Box Score) in Claremont at the beginning of November and 9-7 (Box Score) at home at the end of September.

Redlands has won four in-a-row over Pomona-Pitzer as they won both games in 2022, both by the score of 9-8. This win streak comes after the Sagehens had won the previous eight. The last time the Bulldogs went on a four plus game winning streak was the end of the 2007 season through the 2009 season when they won five-straight, their most since 2006.

The winner of this game will play the winner of the other SCIAC Semi-Final between No. 1 Claremont-M-S and No. 4 Chapman University, which will be played concurrently with the Bulldogs in Claremont, CA.