In a rare midweek game between and East coast and West coast team is going on today at 6 p.m. ET between the No. 4 Arizona St. Sun Devils and the No. 18 Princeton Tigers in Walnut Springs, Calif. Arizona State is also taking on Asuza-Pacific immediately after at 7:15 p.m. ET.
Arizona State is coming off of a 2-1 weekend which saw them easily defeat the Iona Gales and Pamona-Pitzer, but the big game was on Saturday when they took on No. 1 ranked UCLA Bruins. That game was a hard fought battle with Arizona State falling 8-6.
Princeton has been out in California since late last week and has gone 3-1 with victories over No. 12 Cal St. Northridge 4-3, a 7-6 win over No, 19 UC San Diego, a 10-6 win over the Pacific Tigers and finally close lose to the No. 8 ranked San Diego St. Aztecs 9-7.
On the year Princeton is 19-2 with their only two loses being to San Diego State and the San Jose St. Spartans, both ranked in the top 12.
This will be a good challenge for Princeton and it will not be an easy game for Arizona State even though they are ranked No. 4. Princeton is 4-0 in CWPA, but they have yet to play Hartwick, Indiana, Maryland or Michigan yet, however they will not face Michigan or Indiana unless it is at the Eastern Championships.
Princeton's scoring is spread out with 10 players scoring in double digits, with four over 20-plus goals and Katie Rigler is leading the team with 39 goals so far. However, the strength of Princeton is their defense as they have allowed only 6.9 goals per game, and against ranked teams they are giving up only slightly more at 7.75 per game.
Princeton will need to play like they did against Cal State Northridge where they allowed only three goals in the upset win. Plus, their offense needs to keep pace with Arizona State who can score goals in bunches.
For a prediction I would say Arizona State wins 12-7.
For more water polo news, join the conversation on Twitter, Facebook and Google+