BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — For the first time in the history of the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC)-West Division a team other than Gannon University will hold the No. 1 seed for the championship as McKendree University leads the field for the Winter 2021 event hosted by Mercyhurst University on Saturday-Sunday, February 27-28, at the David M. Hallman III Aquatics Center in Erie.
Due to the cancellation of league games brought about due to the COVID-19 pandemic, seeding for the championship is based on win-loss percentage of the teams during the regular season.
McKendree – which finished 4-0 with victories over Washington & Jefferson College (24-6 W), Gannon (13-11 W), Mount St. Mary’s University (22-12 W) and Mercyhurst (17-11 W) – becomes the first program except Gannon to hold the No. 1 seed.
The Bearcats’ No. 1 position comes about thanks to its defeat of Gannon as the Golden Knights saw a 29-game consecutive conference regular season wins streak snapped with the setback. The loss marked Gannon’s first-ever regular season defeat in MAWPC-West competition as the Golden Knights previously stood at 27-0. Including the prior Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA)-Southern Division-West Region, Gannon was 29-0 entering the game versus league opponents in conference/regular season action dating back to a 12-11 loss at Mercyhurst University on October 9, 2015.
In addition, the loss terminated a nine-game overall MAWPC-West winning streak (including the MAWPC Championship) stretching back to a 12-9 loss to McKendree on November 3, 2018 when the Bearcats clawed past the Golden Knights in the semifinals of the MAWPC-West Championship at the David M. Hallman Aquatic Center in Erie.
For McKendree, the No. 1 seed does not guarantee the program’s second MAWPC-West Championship. The 2018 MAWPC-West Champion, McKendree enters the fifth MAWPC-West Championship with history only half of the Bearcats’ side and half on the side of the No. 4 seed – Mercyhurst.
Created in 2016, the MAWPC-West Championship has seen the No. 1 seed win only half of the tournaments. In 2016, Gannon won the regular season crown with a perfect record, only to suffer a 12-10 semifinal setback versus eventual champion/No. 4 seed Mercyhurst. Gannon, which finished in Third Place in 2016, avenged its semifinal loss in 2017 by rolling through the field to claim the program’s first MAWPC-West crown. History repeated itself in 2018 as Gannon once again won the regular season crown with an unblemished mark, but fell in the semifinals by a 12-9 score to eventual champion McKendree. Last year, Gannon again went undefeated in the regular season and avenged a semifinal loss by dispatching McKendree, 15-14 in overtime, to take the Golden Knights’ second MAWPC-West title.
Gannon – which downed Mount St. Mary’s (22-10 W), Mercyhurst (13-11 W), Salem University (15-7 W) and Washington & Jefferson (14-10 W) with a loss to McKendree (13-11 L) to finish with a 4-1 record – holds the No. 2 position for the first time.
First-year varsity program Mount St. Mary’s – which downed Mercyhurst (10-7 W), Washington & Jefferson (17-10 W) and Salem (18-10 W) with losses to McKendree (22-12 L) and Gannon (22-10 L) for a 3-2 regular season league mark – takes the No. 3 berth, while Mercyhurst – which topped Washington & Jefferson (17-8 W) and Salem (20-7 W) with defeats by Gannon (9-6 L), Mount St. Mary’s (10-7 L) and McKendree (17-11 L) for a 2-3 record – snags the No. 4 spot with eyes on repeating its own 2016 fortune and that of McKendree in 2018.
The final two seeds in the six-time field can not be determined by win-loss percentage as Washington & Jefferson and Salem finished 0-4 and 0-3, respectively, during COVID-19 impacted MAWPC-West regular season action.
Due to this fact, Washington & Jefferson claims the No. 5 seed due to goal differential versus common opponents compared to Salem. W&J lost to Gannon (14-10 L), Mount St. Mary’s (17-8 L) and Mercyhurst (17-8 L) for a 48-28 differential (-20), while Salem lost to Gannon (15-7 L), Mount St. Mary’s (18-10 L) and Mercyhurst (20-7 L) for a 53-24 differential (-29). Due to a smaller goal differential, the Presidents will play out of the No. 5 spot in the field.
The top two teams from the MAWPC-West Championship earn berths to the MAWPC Championship on Saturday-Sunday, March 6-7, at the United States Naval Academy’s Lejeune Hall in Annapolis, Md.
For fans, in person attendance will not be allowed at the MAWPC-West Championship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the entire nine-game championship tournament will be streamed on CWPATV.com on a pay-per-view basis.
