LA JOLLA, Calif. — The UC San Diego men's water polo team announced its 2026 competition schedule Thursday.
Packed with exciting action from beginning to end, the campaign gets underway in late August with the annual Triton Invitational and culminates with UC San Diego hosting the 2026 National Collegiate Championship in December.
Season tickets go on sale August 3 while single game tickets will be available August 15. To purchase tickets, visit the
Triton Box Office.
Canyonview Aquatic Center on campus comes alive August 28-30 as a talented field competes in the Triton Invitational. The 2025 event featured 13 teams with five squads ranked in the national top-10 including No. 1 UCLA and No. 2 USC. The Trojans posted a 4-0 record while the Tritons finished with an even 3-3 mark.
Up next, UC San Diego takes part in a pair of tournaments on the road when it travels to Cal State Fullerton's Titan Invitational as well as the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Invitational, which will be hosted by Stanford. In 2025, the Tritons went 3-1 at the MPSF Invitational, earning wins over Princeton, LMU, and UC Davis en route to finishing fifth overall.
Canyonview will be rocking on Wednesday, September 23, as the student body returns to campus for the annual Battle of the Kings against LMU. Last season, the Tritons earned a 14-9 victory over the Lions in front of a boisterous crowd of 1,100. With the win, UC San Diego improved to 11-8 in the all-time series.
A quick trip to the Gary Troyer tourney on Oct. 2 precedes the opening of the Big West schedule for UC San Diego.
The Tritons' conference slate takes kicks off October 9 on the road at Long Beach State. Other league match-ups are set for October 16 (home against UC Santa Barbara), October 23 (away at UC Irvine), October 30 (home against Cal State Fullerton), and November 6 (at California Baptist). This is the inaugural season for the Lancers as a member of the Big West.
Regular season non-conference contests are set for October 10 (at USC), October 17 (home against Concordia University Irvine), October 24 (home against LMU), October 25 (home against Stanford), November 7 (at UCLA), November 12 (home against Biola), and November 14 (home against Saint Mary's).
The Big West Championship, with an automatic berth in the NCAA National Collegiate Championship on the line, is set for November 20-22 at the Ken Lindgren Aquatics Center on the campus of Long Beach State. In 2025 UC San Diego downed UC Irvine in Irvine to advance to the semifinals where the Tritons fell to Long Beach State.
UC San Diego will be in the spotlight as the National Collegiate Men's Water Polo Championship comes to Canyonview Aquatic Center in early December. Quarterfinals take place on December 4, semifinals are set for December 5, and a national champion will be crowned on Sunday, December 6.
This will be the fourth time that UC San Diego has hosted the event, the last coming in 2014.
UC San Diego compiled a solid 21-10 overall record in 2025. The Tritons ran off seven consecutive victories between September 20 and October 3.
About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of The Big West in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 84 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.
