Oct. 26, 2016

DAVIS, Calif. - Like clockwork, the weekly Collegiate Water Polo Association men's Top 20 hit "In" boxes at noon on Wednesday, with two teams tied up in the No. 8 spot: UC Davis and Pepperdine â€" as if the voting members collectively glanced at the weekend schedule. Indeed, the Aggies and Waves will meet up on Saturday at Schaal Aquatics Center.

The Aggies own an 18-4 record and are tied for first place in the Western Water Polo Association with a 4-0 mark. In a three-day span over the weekend, UC Davis won five straight games, including two against Top 20 competition and another against a team receiving votes toward the poll. The weekend finished with a 23-4 victory over then-No. 14 George Washington, a performance that set a school record for margin of victory and marked the team's highest single-game scoring total in almost exactly 20 years. For head coach Daniel Leyson, the overall results were par for the course. Sure, the Aggies suffered untimely upsets at the Rodeo tournament in the two previous years, plus this year's schedule had the conference game against Air Force on the front end. However, Leyson's goals for UC Davis are such that said upsets should not happen, particularly at this point in the season. "I feel good about what we did but at the same time, we know that it really doesn't mean that much," said Leyson. "The expectations for our program are super-high, and anything other than 5-0 would have been disappointing." The weekend certainly did not want for encouraging moments. UC Davis gutted out a tough 7-6 win against No. 10 Harvard despite two players fouling out early in the game. Sophomore Marcus Anderson led the Aggies in scoring overall, netting 11 goals with four assists in the five contests. Junior Cory Laidig shot 7-for-8 with seven steals during his four Rodeo tournament games, while freshman Yurii Hanley totaled six goals, eight assists and three field blocks for the week. Sophomore Brock Gordon added seven goals, five steals and four assists. Junior goalkeeper Spencer Creed played just 10 of the 16 quarters at the Rodeo but allowed just 10 goals with 25 saves for a whopping .714 success rate. Sophomore Ido Goldschmidt had a high-output tournament on the stat sheet with eight goals, six assists and seven steals. That onslaught of names and numbers reveals just how many weapons Leyson has on his roster. In fact, the fourth-year Aggie mentor points to the win over the Crimson as a testament to his team's depth. "Honestly, I didn't feel like we played well against Harvard," he said. "We had some players who were undisciplined at times, and that could have really hurt us. The encouraging thing is that with two of our players out, we were able to continue moving forward and win the game. "That shows we have some good depth. Even if we get some people in foul trouble, we won't fold by any means. We're not a one-person team." Still, 80 goals scored in five wins notwithstanding, Leyson continues to hold the bar higher for his team. Lapses in decision making and "inexcusable mistakes" may not sink UC Davis when facing unranked foes at the Rodeo, but they can and will haunt the team in the crucial conference games or at the WWPA tournament. The Aggies return to the proverbial grindstone harder than ever this week in preparation for Saturday's contest with Pepperdine plus the LMU/UCSD weekend that follows. "We're just trying to get better and understand what is acceptable and what isn't," said Leyson. "In the last game [against GW], we made fewer mistakes and you can see the difference in the result. We made it through the weekend, and it has no bearing on the games to come. It has nothing to do with how LMU and San Diego will come in here and give us their toughest games." Incoming Pepperdine (10-9) certainly knows what a motivated Loyola Marymount team is capable of. The Waves and Lions squared off for the second 2016 meeting of the Pacific Coast Highway Cup rivals two weeks ago, with only a Mark Urban goal in the final minutes preventing overtime in a 7-6 win. Last weekend, Pepperdine battled with No. 5 Stanford in a 9-5 loss despite a hat trick from sophomore Marko Asic, who leads his team with 46 goals in 19 games this year. Urban and freshman Mate Toth, both international players from Hungary, have 29 and 32 goals, respectively. Coach Leyson's primary goal for UC Davis is to win the WWPA and thus reach the NCAA tournament. However, his secondary goal is to transform the Aggies into a perennial Top 10 program, a status Pepperdine has held for its entire existence as a program. "It's going to be an exciting, non-conference game. If we want to reach our goals, we have to play these teams," said Leyson. "It's a great opportunity for us. We're just going to work on our game, try to get a little bit better, and see where it goes. It will be a really good game, though. Pepperdine is a good team and they have a lot of good players, as usual. They're physical and they have very talented scorers. It's a good test for us." Saturday's game begins at 12:30 p.m. Admission is free. Live stats are available at The FOSH while a video stream is available via the UC Davis men's water polo YouTube channel. SKIP SHOTS: The 2016 UC Davis team averages 13.45 goals per game, well in ahead of any other team in the program's recorded history (since 1993)... Previous high averages belong to the 1996 (11.76) and 2011 (10.88 teams)... With at least six games left to play, eight Aggies have netted at least 20 goals: Ido Goldschmidt (39), Sasa Antunovic (35), Marcus Anderson (34), Riley Venne (26), Morgan Olson-Fabbro (25), Cory Laidig (24), Eric Martel (24) and Tennyson May (20)... Sophomore Brock Gordon (17) and freshman Yurii Hanley (16) are also on pace to hit that threshold... In comparison, each of the 2013 through 2015 teams had five such scorers... The previous high was the 2011 team, with seven... Of course, that squad did it in 34 contests, more than the 2016 Aggies could possibly play even if they reached the national title game.Junior GK Spencer Creed raised his season steals total to 35, which brings his career sum to 125 â€" three ahead of 2011 All-American and current assistant coach Kevin Peat for second in school history... Only two-time All-American and 2007 WWPA Player of the Year Mike McGee had more, with 168 during his career from 2004-07... Meanwhile, both Antunovic and Laidig have 30 picks each, putting them within three of entering the school's Top 5 for field players... Antunovic had 36 as a freshman, third on the list... UC Davis steals records date back to 2004.The Aggies' national ranking of a tie for eighth is the highest since hitting No. 8 outright at two different times in 2007, mostly recently the Oct. 24 poll that season... The Aggies reached as high as No. 6 on September 13, 2006.