Lady Devils in line for No. 1 seed

The Merced College women's water polo team officially served notice to the rest of Northern California over the weekend.

The Lady Devils might just be the best team the North has to offer, staking their claim to the NorCal Tournament No. 1 seed after capturing the Big 8/Coast Conference Tournament title in Rocklin on Saturday.

Bill Halpin's squad improved to 20-1 with victories over San Joaquin Delta, Fresno City, Sierra and Santa Rosa. MC was the only team to go 4-0 in the tournament.

It just pads an already impressive resume.

The Lady Devils are ranked 7th in the state according jcwaterpolo.com. Their only loss was an 11-7 defeat to No. 3 Fullerton. The only other NorCal team presently in position to make a claim at the No. 1 seed is Big 8 leader No. 9 Diablo Valley (16-3).

But MC handled the Vikings 10-4 earlier in the season. That means as long as the Lady Devils take care of business in the Coast Conference Tournament, the top seed should be theirs.

"There's still a lot that can happen, and we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but it's a nice position to be in," Halpin said. "I keep reminding the girls that what we do now isn't going to matter if we let up in November, so hopefully we can keep this going.

"Getting a top seed is big because you get a bye, and then you just have to win two games to qualify for state, which is pretty special."

A little extra madness

UC Merced has never had trouble filling out the Joseph Edward Gallo Gym for Midnight Madness.

The first official day basketball teams can practice is a nation-wide event that the Golden Bobcat faithful have passionately embraced the last two years for the school's men's and women's club basketball teams.

But now that the men's team is an official NAIA varsity competitor, with the women's team to follow in 2012, there was a little extra excitement in the gym last Thursday night.

Men's head coach John Sykes said the players could feel the difference. That seemed to be the case as the team combined for 103 points in its 20-minute scrimmage.

Finding their stride

The UC Merced men's and women's cross country teams won't score at this year's Cal Pac Championships thanks to its first-year probationary status. But that doesn't mean head coach Spencer Castro isn't hoping to garner some attention.

Alexandria Curtis and Daniel Pena have led their respective teams all season, but as last weekend's Santa Clara Bronco Invitational results showed, the rest of the pack is closing the gap.

Andrew Pierce was the men's top finisher, setting a personal record by 17 seconds. Curtis still paced the women, but Jillian Foster and Sunny Partington both finished less than a minute behind her.

The Golden Bobcats are hoping to show just how far they've come as a unit at Friday's Cal Pac Preview race.

Go time for MC

The Merced College football team did what it had to do over the weekend, bouncing back from an embarrassing loss to Modesto Junior College with an easy 35-7 victory over Los Medanos.

That was the easy part, with the Mustangs winless on the year. MC's true Golden Gate Conference tests will come in the last four weeks of the season.

If last weekend's scores are any indication, little separates the Blue Devils four remaining opponents. That means MC will need to be consistently good the rest of the way to make a run at the GGC crown.

The gauntlet starts on the road on Saturday against NorCal No. 8 Chabot (5-1).

Sean Lynch is a Sun-Star sports writer. He can be reached at (209) 385-2476 or via e-mail at slynch@mercedsunstar.com.