Stanford men’s water polo, fresh off of its first place finish at the SoCal Tournament last week, hopes to carry that momentum into conference play this weekend in an MPSF conference that includes the eight of the top-ranked teams in the country.

For the No. 1 Cardinal (7-2), just about every season without a national championship will be framed as a disappointment, and this year is no exception. To get to the four-team postseason, Stanford will need to clinch either the conference or at-large bid — which is all but assured to come out of the dominant MPSF.

“Our goal is to win MPSF or get an at-large bid,” said head coach John Vargas. “Those are always our expectations.”

In the context of these standards, Stanford had a down year in 2010. The team lost a heartbreaking overtime game against USC in the MPSF final and finished the season with a 15-9 record — not enough for the Cardinal to receive the at-large bid, which went to Cal.

“The disappointing thing was that we were so close. We were only a goal or two away,” Vargas said.

Coming into this season, most critics did not expect a lot from a Stanford team that lost Second Team All-Americans Sage Wright and Jeffrey Schwimer to graduation. Wright and Schwimer, along with classmate Alex Pulido, had been central pieces of the Cardinal attack for the last few years.

But freshman utility Alex Bowen has been huge so far this season in filling the scoring void left by the strong graduating class. While Vargas acknowledges that he “knew [Bowen] was good,” few could have expected just how good Bowen would turn out, a sentiment echoed by his teammates.

“For a true freshman to have something like 22 goals in eight games, that’s impressive, almost unheard of,” said junior driver Paul Rudolph, who is no stranger to scoring goals early in his career — Rudolph’s 33 goals were tied for second on the team last season.

Stanford made huge strides at this past weekend’s SoCal Tournament, going 4-0 and earning a spot of revenge by upsetting rival Cal and then-No. 1 USC. Two weeks earlier, Stanford had lost to both of those teams at the NorCal Invitational.

Vargas attributes the two early losses to the fact that four key players — Bowen, Rudolph, senior utility Peter Sefton and redshirt freshman utility Nick Hoversten — joined the team late into the preseason due to various national team commitments.

“We weren’t quite organized yet,” Vargas said, “and I knew going forward we could improve a lot.”

Although Stanford has already played against several MPSF opponents (including Cal and USC), this weekend’s games against Pepperdine and UC-Santa Barbara mark the start of official conference play. Neither of these teams are traditional powerhouses, but Stanford has stressed the importance that comes with every conference game.

“Obviously our goal is to win the NCAA championship,” Rudolph said. “But to do that we have to also take care of the smaller steps on the way, and that means taking every MPSF game very seriously.”

Pepperdine, which the Cardinal will host in its home opener at 7 p.m. this Friday, is a perfect example of a conference team that Stanford cannot take for granted. Losing any games can severely hurt the team’s chances of getting the at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, but losing to a team outside of the top four can be devastating. And the Waves are no pushover, as Stanford discovered firsthand this past weekend in a narrow 7-6 victory in the quarterfinals of the SoCal Tournament.

Pepperdine has a balanced offensive attack with a lot of good shooters. Its two left-handed players give the squad the diversity to shoot and score from just about every position. Fans who go to the game should expect a tough, intense match that could include a lot of goals.

With the No. 1 ranking already in hand, Stanford has a chance for a breakout season in 2011. The biggest thing to look out for will be how the team performs defensively — “It’s all about the defense,” Rudolf put it bluntly. The Cardinal is relying on fifth-year senior goalie Brian Pingree to anchor a team that has had its fair share of inconsistent play on the offensive end.

“We have great team chemistry and a lot of depth,” Rudolph said. “If we can stay focused and not get complacent…we have the necessary tools to do something great.”