SANTA CLARA, Calif. – The 17th-ranked Santa Clara men's water polo team will host a pair of significant home games this weekend - match-ups that will determine its seeding in the upcoming 2015 WWPA Championships, 

No. 17 Santa Clara (9-17; 1-3 WWPA) faces conference rivals Fresno Pacific Saturday at 1 p.m. and No. 18 Air Force Sunday at 12 noon.

With the seven WWPA teams playing each other just once during a six-game conference schedule, each league game takes on added importance leading up to the championships. This year's tournament will be held at the Air Force Academy in Colorado the weekend of Nov. 20-22.

The WWPA winner earns an automatic berth into the six-team NCAA Championships.  

"These games will affect our conference seeding, but it is hard to say exactly how since there are lots of games being played during this last weekend (of WWPA play)," said Santa Clara Head Coach Keith Wilbur. "So we are focusing more on playing good water polo and winning the games, rather than how the outcome will affect our seeding in conference playoffs."

Santa Clara has been playing well as of late, especially in its home pool, where the team is 4-2 this fall. The Broncos play three of its last four at home, including the program's 'Senior Day' Saturday, Nov. 14 against San Jose State.

The Broncos have two seniors on the 2015 roster, Evan Chang (pictured) and Joe Maestri. Both play key roles. Chang is the team-leader in kick-outs drawn (45), while Maestri has made 18 starts in goal and saved 23 shots during last week's road trip to play nationally-ranked No. 16 UC San Diego and No. 14 LMU.

"We took a couple of tough losses on the road, albeit against good teams," said Wilbur. "In both games we came out strong in the first half, but didn't maintain that level of play in the second half.  We are addressing that issue in practice this week. We want to maintain the strong start, but we definitely want get stronger each quarter, as most games are won or lost in the second half."

The Broncos are familiar with Fresno Pacific (9-14; 1-3 WWPA) and Air Force (7-15; 1-3 WWPA). SCU has not played them yet this year, however both were in Santa Clara two weeks ago to play the East Coast teams at the Broncos annual home tournament.