2000 National Collegiate Club Championships
from Seattle, WA

The MSU Men's Water Polo team overcame all odds at this year's National Collegiate Club Tournament to take first place honors. In order for a team to win it all they have to go undefeated the entire tournament. In the Spartans first game they played the Gators from the University of Florida. This first game of the tournament showed the level of play that the Spartans would have to play to win. The game was close all the way until the end when MSU got a nice lead to win 10-7.

The second game of the tournament would be against Miami of Ohio. A team that had beaten MSU earlier when the two teams met. Miami had also beaten the University of Michigan and Purdue earlier in the year too. Miami was undefeated, until this game. The Spartans knew that Miami centered their offense around a graduate student from UCLA who used to play NCAA Water Polo. Jeremy Braxton Brown was a domintating player that needed to be shut down. MSU was able to force Miami to use other parts of their offense to try and score which proved to be not enough. MSU was able to pull away with a final score of 15-10.

The next day was the semi-final game against defending National Champion Cal Poly. MSU had watched Cal Poly's previous games and knew there offense was mostly fast-breaks. The Spartans focused on slowing down Cal Poly's offense and playing them straight up polo. The game was close the entire way and the final score ended up being 8-6 in favor or the Spartans. Michigan State was going to play for the National Championship.

The Championship match would be between Michigan State and the host team the University of Washington. Michigan State felt that this was a team that was the most similar to themselves than any team they had played yet. They matched up very closely. In the first quarter MSU's main hole guard Dave Spoelstra got into foul trouble and sat out much of the game. He eventually fouled out in the third quarter. MSU's Big Ten MVP Pete Ryan fouled out in the fourth quarter while MSU had a 2 goal lead. Washington pulled within a goal and got the ball back with 6 seconds and called a time out. When play resumed Michigan State's determination was able to stop Washington's last chance and MSU had won their first National Collegiate Championship! During the awards ceremony Pete Ryan received 1st team honors while Jeff Rodgers, Joe Brennan, and Brian Swank (goalie) recieved 2nd team honors. MSU's coach Brian Fickies was award the National coach of the year.