CMS Men's Water Polo Hosts Pomona-Pitzer Wednesday Night in Regular Season Home Finale

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The CMS men's water polo team welcomes in Pomona-Pitzer in the latest Sixth Street Rivalry matchup on Wednesday evening at Axelrood Pool. Although they wouldn't mind inviting them back again next week.

Tomorrow's meeting (7 p.m.) represents the final regular season home contest at Axelrood for the Stags (15-9, 10-2 SCIAC), who currently stand in second place in the league standings, one game behind Whittier (11-1) and one game ahead of Pomona-Pitzer (9-3). A CMS win would guarantee that the Stags would host the Sagehens again next week in the SCIAC semifinals on Friday, Nov. 22, unless it could pass Whittier for the top seed, which would be unlikely since the Poets have the tiebreaker, due to greater goal differential head-to-head with CMS. 

A loss, meanwhile, would drop CMS into a tie for second place, and the tiebreaker scenarios would get complicated, depending on whether the final margin was by one goal or more. A CMS win, though, would take all of the complications away. 



"We obviously want that home advantage," said senior Ethan Lewis. "I think we just kind of thrive in this environment with our big crowd. It definitely excites us."

The first meeting on Oct. 9 came right down to the wire, with Lewis scoring the eventual game-winner with 1:49 to go and sophomore goalie Noah Smith preserving it with a couple of big saves late, resulting in the two teammates sweeping the SCIAC Offensive and Defensive Player of the Week Awards. CMS won the only head-to-head battle with Pomona-Pitzer in 2015, but hadn't picked up a win since the current seniors arrived as freshmen in 2016, including falling all three years in the conference championship game. 

"We've had a tough stretch against them," Lewis said. "I think it just feels really good because over all those years putting in so much practice and work, I think we've seen everyone develop so much. It's great to see it finally pay off."

That win jump-started an impressive stretch for CMS, which has been 8-1 since defeating Pomona-Pitzer, but the Stags did have a setback in a 10-9 loss at La Verne on Oct. 30, which forced the team to regroup. They have since won their last three, including a 10-9 win over No. 1 Whittier at Axelrood to hand the Poets their first SCIAC loss. 

CMS also broke the trend of close games and had a complete wire-to-wire win over Occidental on Saturday, taking control early and cruising to a 19-7 victory. It was a classic trap game, stuck in between big home battles with Whittier and Pomona-Pitzer, but the Stags refused to fall into the trap. Lewis felt that the Stags showed some maturity in learning from their setback to La Verne. 

"I think the La Verne game was a little inevitable," said Lewis. "I think our mindset going into games was not as intense and as dynamic as it needed to be, and that game was a wake-up call. I think moving forward at this point, we're really a lot more focused." 

The focus now is to try to sweep the regular season series from the Sagehens and guarantee that Axelrood will be one of the home venues for the SCIAC Tournament. Opening sprint is at 7 p.m.