GW Women's Water Polo Set for CWPA Championship
4/28/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Water Polo
 |  | Follow @GW_WaterPolo |
April 28, 2016
| GW Women's Water Polo at CWPA Championship | |
| WHEN | Friday-Sunday, April 29-May 1 |
| WHERE | Harvard's Blodgett Pool | Cambridge, Mass. | Directions |
| HOW | Live Video | Tournament Central | @GW_WaterPolo |
| TICKETS | Ticket Info |
SETTING THE STAGE: The GW women's water polo team heads to Cambridge, Massachusetts this weekend for the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Championship. The three-day, nine-team event will take place from April 29-May 1 at Harvard's Blodgett Pool.
GW (7-16) will be the No. 8 seed in the tournament and will take on ninth-seeded Connecticut College on Friday at 12 p.m. The winner will face top-seeded and fifth-ranked Michigan at 6 p.m., while the loser will square off with the loser of Friday's Princeton/Harvard contest on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. The remainder of the weekend's schedule will be determined by results, concluding with placement games on Sunday.
WHAT'S AT STAKE: The winner of the CWPA Championship will receive the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
LAST YEAR AT CWPAs: GW placed eighth at the 2015 CWPA Championship at Princeton. The Colonials defeated Mercyhurst, 6-5, in the opening round and downed Connecticut College, 13-12, the following day, but dropped matches to Princeton and Brown before falling to Bucknell, 9-6, in the seventh-place contest. The 12th-ranked Tigers won the 2015 league title with a 7-6 win over No. 11 Indiana.
Scarlett Hallahan (9g, 4a) and Jacqueline Bywater (7g, 7a) paced the Colonials offensively, while Bywater and Maggie Ball each recorded a team-best 13 steals and Erin McGeoy posted 21 ejections drawn across the five games.
THE FIELD: No. 6 Michigan (26-6, 7-0 CWPA) earned the top seed in the CWPA Championship, followed by No. 14 Indiana (21-6, 6-1), No. 20 Bucknell (16-14, 4-3) and No. 17 Princeton (17-6, 4-3). No. 18 Harvard (22-8, 3-4) took the fifth seed, while No. 21 Hartwick (15-12, 3-4) is sixth and Brown (9-23, 1-6) is seventh.
RECORDS WATCH: Senior Hannah Cox, GW's all-time leading scorer with 186 career goals, also ranks ninth all-time at GW with 198 points and 11th with 98 ejections drawn. Ball ranks second all-time with 27 career field blocks, while Hallahan is close behind in fourth place with 22. In addition, McGeoy ranks fifth with 111 ejections drawn and Bywater is ninth on the Colonials' all-time assists list with 74.
CENTURY MARK: Cox (186), Hallahan (136) and Bywater (127) give the Colonials three players with 100 career goals for the first time since Rachael Bentley, Katherine Berry and Megan Brolley in 2014.
NIFTY 50: Hallahan's team-best 55 goals in 2016 are the sixth-highest single-season total in program history, one shy of Cox's 56 in 2013. The teammates are the only two Colonials ever to score at least 50 goals in two different seasons.
STEALING THE SHOW: Ball leads the Colonials with 54 steals on the year, tied for the ninth-highest single-season total ever by a Colonial.
GET OUT: McGeoy's team-high 49 ejections drawn are tied for the ninth-most ever by a Colonial in a season. After tallying 62 a year ago, she needs one to join Megan Walker ('12) and Vanessa Fravel ('04) as the only players in program history with 50 ejections drawn in two different seasons.
SCOUTING THE CAMELS: Connecticut College (15-6) earned the ninth slot in this weekend's tournament as the CWPA's Division III champion, winning its fourth straight crown two weeks ago with a 13-9 win over Washington & Jefferson. Sam Pierce scored five times, while Kelsey Millward scored four goals en route to MVP honors. The Camels are ranked 10th in Division III nationally.
GW VS. CONN. COLLEGE: The Colonials are 2-0 all-time against the Camels, with both previous matchups occurring last season. Hallahan tallied four goals and two assists and Ball recorded six steals in GW's 11-8 win during the regular season, while McGeoy, Bywater and Hallahan each notched hat tricks as the Colonials edged the Camels, 13-12, in the first round of the CWPA Championship.
