SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Santa Clara men's water polo released its 2012 schedule Thursday. After finishing fourth in the Western Water Polo Association Championships in 2011, the Broncos will take part in five tournaments this season.

"We have a very competitive schedule this year and I would estimate about 75 percent of our games will be against teams ranked in the top-20," said Santa Clara head coach Keith Wilbur who is entering his 11th season at the helm for the Broncos and finished third at the WWPA's in 2010, the highest in the program's history. "We have several good teams in our conference and when we go out of conference we try to play the best teams possible. Stanford, Cal and Pacific are three teams in Northern California outside our conference who we have started to schedule games with on a yearly basis. Last year all three of those teams finished ranked in the top-six. These are great opportunities for our guys to play some of the best teams in college and when they do that with the right approach, it really benefits us when we come back to conference play."

Santa Clara will scrimmage with Pacific and Cal on Sept. 2 before opening the regular season in Redlands, Calif. at the Inland Empire Tournament on Sept. 8 and 9. The Broncos will also play at Stanford for NorCals Sept. 15 and 16, at Davis for the Davis Shootout Sept 22 and 23 and at Santa Barbara for SoCals on Sept. 29 and 30.

The conference schedule will start on Oct. 7 when Santa Clara travels to Colorado to take on Air Force who finished fifth in the WWPA last season. On Oct. 13 the Broncos will host their annual Alumni game before hosting the annual Rodeo Tournament the following weekend from Oct. 19-21.

The Broncos will host perennial powerhouse Stanford and travel to Cal, who finished last season ranked No. 3 in the country, before wrapping-up the regular season at Sullivan Aquatic Center vs. UC Davis.

The WWPA Championships will take place from Nov. 16-18 in Whittier, Calif. to finish up the 2012 campaign for the Broncos.