FRESNO, Calif. - The Fresno State water polo team inches closer to the 2024 season, coming off of its third-straight Golden Coast Conference regular season and tournament championship title a season ago. The Bulldogs turn their focus to the upcoming season with the 2024 schedule announced on Friday.
Fresno State will open the season with Polo-Palooza on Jan. 20-21, its first home-hosted tournament of the season with Michigan, Cal, Hawai'i, UC Davis, UC Irvine and Stanford in attendance at the Aquatics Center.
The Bulldogs will travel to Honolulu for the Hawai'i Invitational, playing matches against Azusa Pacific and Princeton, and a match with the home team Hawai'i on Jan. 26-27.
For the second-straight season, Fresno State will compete in the Triton Invite (Feb. 2-4), hosted by UC San Diego in La Jolla, Calif.
A cross-town rivalry sees Fresno Pacific at the Aquatics Center on Feb. 16 to kick off Fresno State's second home-hosted tournament, the Bulldog Mini. Other teams in the Bulldog Mini include UC Merced, Cal Tech, APU and Whittier. The Bulldogs face off with Whittier on Feb. 17.
The Bulldogs close out nonconference play in Irvine at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational, hosted by UC Irvine, on Feb. 23-25.
GCC play opens in Fresno with the Bulldogs hosting Cal Baptist (Mar. 9) and San Diego State (Mar. 16) before facing three on the road at LMU (Mar. 23), Concordia (April 6) and Azusa Pacific (April 12). Fresno State will close out the regular season at home, hosting Pacific (April 14) and Santa Clara (April 20).
The Bulldogs will take a GCC pause and play a nonconference matchup with Cal in Fresno on March 28.
The GCC Tournament will be played April 26-28 in Santa Clara, Calif.
Notable
All seven teams in the Polo-Palooza finished 2023 inside the Top 15 in the CWPA team rankings.
Stanford was the 2023 NCAA National Champion, and will be in Fresno for the season-opening tournament.
Fresno State will host two tournaments this season - the Polo-Palooza and the Bulldog Mini.
The first three neutral site games of the Polo-Palooza will be played at Clovis North High School before the tournament moves back to the Aquatics Center.
Fresno State has won 25-straight GCC games, dating back to a loss to San Diego State on March 27, 2021.
The Bulldogs return 2023 GCC Player of the Year in Brooke Ochoa and the GCC Newcomer of the Year in Hailey Andress.
Natalie Benson returns as head coach of the Bulldog water polo program as a three-time GCC Coach of the Year. Benson has a 79-62 overall record as head coach at Fresno State