Olympian women’s water polo wrested third place in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference from Miramar (2-4) with a 10-3 victory Wednesday.

“The win against Miramar set us up for conference championships. Going in as no worse than the third seed,” said Head Coach Jim Fegan.

Mesa (3-4) has won the PCAC championship for the last five years – a tradition the young team may not be able to follow against this season’s top seed and undefeated Grossmont (6-0.)

Of the nine first year players on the 2009 PCAC championship team only one, goalie Stephanie Feilen, returned this season.?

Feilen finished the 2009 season with 198 saves and an All-Conference honorable mention.

The first week of the semester just five players were in the pool. Some made last minute transfers to four-year schools and others were injured or academically ineligible.

“We’re up to 16 now. For the most part they’re pretty young, pretty inexperienced and there are a few girls that never played before,” said Fegan.

The team has matured over the season, as evidenced by their 0-5 start and their now 10-10 overall record. They have also shrunken their 5 and 8 goal spreads against Grossmont and Palomar (5-2) respectively to a single score in their second match-ups.

Freshman Mojgon Malekpour has taken on a leadership role leading the Mesa squad in goals this season. She has overcome the fact that the team has never played together and helps form unified play action.

“With a new squad you have to start over, and work with them to find out who’s good at what,” said Malekpour.

Mesa has one more conference game tomorrow against this year’s conference doormat Southwestern (0-6).

If the Olympians beat Southwestern Oct. 27 and hold on to the third place seed, they will only have to play one game the first day of the PCAC Championship Tournament, Nov. 5, before playing Grossmont for the championship.

“We’ll play, most likely, Palomar [first] who we lost to by one recently,” said Fegan, “I think that’s a team we can beat.”