TEMPE – Following a 4-0 weekend with all four victories coming against ranked teams, the Arizona State University water polo team swept the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Week honors with Mia Rycraw named the Player of the Week and Maud Koopman named Newcomer of the Week, as announced by the MPSF on Tuesday.
Rycraw earned the start in each of ASU’s victories and the redshirt sophomore stopped 33 shots on the weekend compared to just 11 goals allowed (2.8 GAA/.750 save %) as she guided the Sun Devils to wins over No. 5 Michigan, No. 12 Pacific, No. 22 Cal Baptist and No. 23 Marist.
Rycraw stopped seven shots and allowed five goals as ASU upset the Wolverines, adding two steals in the process. She followed that with a nine-save effort against CBU in just three quarters of work, allowing a single goal. A career-best four-steal effort coupled with eight saves, an assist and just two goals allowed against Marist came next before she closed out the weekend with nine saves and three steals with three goals allowed against Pacific.
The netminder out of Walnut High School in Walnut, Calif., led all Sun Devils with nine steals over the course of the weekend and earned her second MPSF Player of the Week nod this season.
She's now averaging 10.75 saves per game – a total that leads the MPSF, as do her 172 total saves on the year.
Her efforts have led to a paltry 5.4 goals against average this season while ASU is allowing just 5.06 goals per game this year – a total good for second in the MPSF and nearly two goals fewer than it allowed last season. Just one team has reached double digits against ASU and that came on a literal last second goal in a tough 10-9 loss to UC Davis is the second weekend of the season.
Koopman went back-to-back as the conference’s Newcomer of the Week after earning the honor last week as well.
The true freshman continued to make her push as one of the top newcomers in the nation and played a pivotal role in ASU’s two biggest wins of the weekend against No. 5 Michigan and No. 12 Pacific.
Koopman was an all-around star, scoring five goals with four assists and seven steals over the course of the weekend. The Dutch attacker scored two goals against No. 12 Pacific and assisted on ASU’s fourth goal of the game in the fourth quarter on what proved to be the game-winner in a 5-3 victory.
The frosh truly set herself apart in ASU’s 8-5 upset over No. 5 Michigan, scoring two goals and leading the team with four steals in the victory – two of those steals coming in the final frame as ASU fended off any chance of a comeback.
Koopman is currently third on the team with 22 goals this season and leads the squad with 39 total points courtest of her team-leading 17 assists. Add in his team-leading 25 steals on the season and the freshman has cemented herself as a name worthy of mention in the same breath as Izabella Chiappini, Alkistis Benekou, E.B. Keeve and Alicia Brightwell as one of the most impressive first-year players at ASU in the last decade.
The Sun Devils head on the road this weekend for a huge MPSF tilt against the third-ranked Stanford Cardinal on Saturday in Palo Alto. The game will get underway at 11 a.m. PT and be broadcast on the Pac-12 Networks.