The article below originally appeared in the San Mateo Daily Journal and is being reprinted with permission.

After beating City College of San Francisco, the College of San Mateo football team now finds itself rooting for the Rams this weekend.

The Bulldogs (2-1 NorCal Conference, 7-1 overall) need CCSF to beat Foothill to have a chance at the conference championship. The Owls are undefeated in NorCal play so far, but if the Rams can beat them there will be a three-way tie for the league lead with just one game remaining.

That’s assuming CSM beats Butte on Saturday — far from a sure thing given the fact that the Bulldogs are only 1-4 against Butte since they entered the NorCal in 2004. As such, Pollack is telling his players not to worry about things out of their control.

“If you focus on things out of your control, you’re going to lead a long, stressful life,” he said.

There’s always a danger for a team to have an emotional letdown coming off a gigantic victory, but Pollack isn’t too concerned in that aspect because he feels the players learned their lesson versus Foothill. CSM had what it deemed a bad week of practice leading up to that game and paid for it, losing 28-27 in a contest it could have won.

Besides, Butte has been nearly a big a nemesis to CSM as CCSF has been. The Roadrunners blasted the Bulldogs 45-14 in ’04, 41-22 in ’05 and 33-14 two years ago. Even last year’s game wasn’t particularly close, a 35-21 Butte victory. The Roadrunners are super tough because they usually have one of the best run games in the nation, are physically superior on the lines and don’t make too many mistakes. This year is no exception.

“The challenge is Butte is Butte,” Pollack said.

Women’s Water Polo

The Bulldogs’ season is winding down, with the Coast Conference playoffs taking place Friday and Saturday at Ohlone College in Fremont.

The Bulldogs open with Merced and assuming they lose will play Ohlone Saturday morning at 7:20 a.m. If they can beat the Renegades, they’ll advance to the fifth-place match that same day at 1:10 p.m. Coach Randy Wright has already laid the groundwork for what he feels will be a successful season: Advance to the fifth-place game and win it, something the Bulldogs have failed to do in the last two years.

“Even in a season of doubt and transition, (winning the fifth-place game) would be outstanding,” Wright said. “At this point we have to be realistic with our goals. We’re going to look past Merced because we know things won’t be so rosy. We’ll rest our stars (more than we normally would) and focus on games we have a chance to win. Say we lose on Friday (vs. Merced), and I’m 100 percent sure of that, we’ll play Ohlone, which beat us by 10 (goals) the first time but only 4-2 the last time we played them. If we can beat them, it’ll show remarkable progress.”

Wright all but guaranteed his team was going to beat Ohlone and return to the fifth-place game. One big reason why is the play of freshman sensation Naj Najdawi, an El Camino High graduate. Najdawi’s water polo experience consisted of two years of club ball — El Camino doesn’t have a water polo team. While confident in her skills, Najdawi never expected to be the go-to player for CSM.

She has scored 65 goals this season, nearly 90 percent of the team’s total output. Known more for her swimming skills — Najdawi was a four-time Peninsula Athletic League Ocean Division champion in the 50 freestyle and 100 breaststroke.

“I didn’t expect to be the main shooter this year, but I guess I can counter, turn people and shoot,” she said.

Wright said Najdawi can do that and plenty more, citing her defensive play against a star West Valley player last week as proof that Najdawi is a legitimate player.

“She’s the anchor to our force,” Wright said. “For her to lead the team with essentially zero water polo experience is pretty remarkable. She’s very aggressive and throws the ball really hard. When she plays well, we swim. When she doesn’t, we sink. That’s how much she means to our team.”

Cross-country

CSM is hosting the Northern California championships on Saturday at the Crystal Springs Course in Belmont. The women will run the same course as the high school athletes do, 2.95 miles. The men will run a longer distance, 4.19 miles.

The Bulldogs have three individuals who qualified for the meet, including Danielle Day from the women’s side and Thomas Setser and Jose Sanchez from the men’s team. Day is from Aragon High, Setser from Georgia and Sanchez from Mexico, making this trio one of the more diversified group of athletes in coach Joe Mangan’s tenure.

Day placed 16th and Setser 17th at last week’s Coast Conference Meet, and Mangan believes the two, along with Sanchez, have outside shots of advancing to state. They need to place in the top half of the field to make it (so if there are 50 runners in the field, the top 25 will advance).