By Benny Garcia — Editor
San Jose State men’s water polo (9-12, 0-2 GCC) will be taking on some formidable opponents in this year’s 2021 Julian Fraser Memorial Tournament.
It is being held in honor of Julian Fraser, who was a former water polo player and student at Santa Clara University who tragically passed away due to a rare form of cancer called osteosarcoma.
It is an annual tournament held in his memory.
This weekend’s tournament will be hosted at both Santa Clara University and San Jose State from Friday, Oct. 22 through Sunday, Oct. 24.
SJSU will be the host of eight games on Saturday and Sunday.
The Spartans will be competing in five of those games.
They will be entering the weekend after losing three of their last four games.
Over the span of two days, SJSU will take on UC Irvine, Princeton, Brown, Fresno Pacific, and Biola University.
Their first opponent will be UC Irvine (7-8, 0-1 GCC) on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. who have been struggling as of late, currently coming into the Bay Area with a three-game losing streak and they have lost four of their last five games.
The Spartans are 2-9 against the Anteaters, but they pulled out the win 14-10 in their last matchup on Nov. 23, 2019.
Likely one of the toughest opponents SJSU will face on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. will undoubtedly be Princeton (17-5, 4-1 IL). However, they enter the weekend going 1-2 over their last three games.
In 2019, SJSU defeated Princeton on Oct. 26, 7-6. It was their first and only game against each other.
SJSU will be taking on another Ivy League school in Brown (12-10, 2-2 IL) on Sunday at 8 a.m.
The Spartans are looking to defeat Brown for the first time, as they are currently 0-2 against the private school with the most recent loss coming on Oct. 21, 2018, with a final score of 11-3.
After their game against Brown, they will be taking on Fresno Pacific University (5-16, 2-3 WWPA) who are on an absolute whirlwind, as they’ve dropped four of their last six games.
SJSU faced the Sunbirds earlier this season on Sep. 4 as they routed FPU and sent them home with a blowout loss, 28-7.
The tournament will come to a close with a match against Biola University (1-15, 0-7 PWC) who enter the weekend with an 11-game losing streak.
Watch SJSU defend their turf at the SRAC pool this weekend.
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