Cal Water Polo: Bears Pull Off `Insane' Comeback to Top USC for NCAA Title

Nikolaos Papanikolaou scores 3 of his 7 goals in the fourth quarter as Bears repeat.

The Papa Bear was too much for USC.

Cal junior Nikolaos Papanikolaou scored three of his seven goals in the fourth period and Roberto Valera netted the game-winner with 41 seconds left as the Bears erased a four-goal deficit for a 13-12 victory over USC in the NCAA water polo championship game at Berkeley's Spieker Aquatics Complex on Sunday afternoon.

“That was insane,” Cal coach Kirk Everist said afterward. “Honestly, I’m having trouble remembering exactly what happened. I know there was a feeling somewhere in the middle of that fourth quarter that we might have a shot. I’m really proud of these guys for not imploding.”

The top-seeded Bears (23-2) made it back-to-back national titles, each time by a 13-12 margin over the Trojans (19-7). Cal has now won 16 NCAA championships in the sport — most of any program in the country.

The Bears are the first team to repeat as NCAA champs since UCLA did it in 2014 and ’15.

The comeback was stunning — and the 6-foot-3, 242-pound senior center from Greece was in the middle of all of it.

“He’s a special kid. He’s a special player,” Everist said of Papanikolaou. “If I had to pick a team, I’d definitely pick him first.”

Still, with 6 minutes left and Cal trailing 12-8, the Bears’ prospects seemed dim.

Both Papanikolaou and teammate Jack Deely, who had a goal and four assists, admitted they were beginning to worry.

“With six minutes left and we’re down by four . . . in water polo that’s a good amount of lead,” Papanikolaou said. “I wasn’t thinking about the score. And it just happened. I’m a bit lost right now, but I’m so happy we made it.”

The hardest part of coming back from such a big hole, Everist said, is to avoid becoming distracted by concerns beyond the moment.

“You’re down 4 and there’s 6 minutes left, all your friends there there and you have this vision in your head of what after was going to be like. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to be there. And you’ve got to keep playing.”

That's exactly what the Bears did.

Valera, a sophomore from Spain, scored with 5:41 left off a pass from Albert Ponferrada to trim the margin to three goals.

Then Papanikolaou — the three-time Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Year — began his ridiculous assault on the USC goal. With a pass into the middle from Jack Deely, Papanikolaou flicked the ball into the net and it was 12-10 with 5:02 left.

Goalkeeper Adrian Weinberg, who had four of his 12 blocks in the fourth quarter, stopped a couple shots by the Trojans before Deely assisted Papanikolaou on a power play and it was 12-11 with 3:22 to play.

USC lost a player to exclusion on an illegal substitution with 1:50 left and 20 seconds later Papanikolaou knotted the score when he tapped in a loose ball off a shot from Ponferrada.

“He’s very good, very good,” USC coach Marko Pentaric said of Papanikolaou.

Cal was a man down when USC called timeout with 1:08 left, but Weinberg stopped a shot then fed a quick counter-attack with a long pass to Valera, who scored with 41 seconds left to give the Bears their first lead since 4-3.

USC had one more chance before Weinberg stole the ball in front of the net with 12 seconds left to clinch the win.

“Cal’s a great team, and momentum is the strongest force in the universe,” USC’s Jake Ehrhardt said. “When they’re rolling and they’re scoring and the crowd is getting ’em going even more, it’s hard to stop that. We did the best we could to kind of pause that energy and get ourselves going, but at the end of the day, we weren’t able to.”

Everist, who won two NCA titles as a player at Cal and now has five as the Bears’ coach, struggled to give the comeback proper context.

“I would be hard-pressed to remember a game that was that exciting. And a game where a team had to pull something completely out of nowhere to win a championship,” Everist said.

“We’ve had comebacks in my 22 years here, but nothing at the level of that because of what’s at stake.”

Valera finished with four goals and an assist and fellow Spaniard Max Casabella had one goal. Papanikolaou, besides his seven goals (three of them in the first period), had an assist and drew seven exclusions from overzealous USC defenders.

He also passed Everist for fifth place on Cal’s career scoring list with 210 goals. Beside of the COVID-19 exemption, Papanikolaou will return for one final season in the fall of 2023.

Nikolaos Papanikolaou, coach Kirk Everist and Jack Deely enjoy the moment.

ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM: Papanikolaou was named MVP of the NCAA tournament and was joined on the all-tournament first team by Deely, Casabella and Weinberg. Valera was chosen to the second team.

Cover photo of Nikolaos Papanikolaou letting loose a triumphant scream by Catharyn Hayne, KLC fotos

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo