For the Michigan water polo team, wins on the West Coast are the hardest kind to come by. West Coast teams, especially California teams, are among the top-ranked in the country and benefit from year-round sunshine.

But this weekend, the Wolverines endured a tough trip to the Arizona State Desert Challenge and came home with a 2-1 record. Not bad for a team that had to battle the flu, as well as compensate for several injured players.

"We could easily have gone 0-3," head coach Matt Anderson said. "Everybody was capable of beating everybody at this tournament."

Michigan came out on top, though, with wins over No. 19 Arizona State on Saturday and No. 9 San Jose State yesterday. The win over San Jose State was the first time Michigan has beaten a top 10 team since it topped California-San Diego back in 2001. Anderson said the two wins helped make the weekend one that exceeded his expectations.

"This weekend was a great step in the development of getting where we need to be and where we expect to be," he said.

The Wolverines opened the weekend against No. 7 Loyola Marymount, a team they lost to earlier this year in February. In this case, history repeated itself, and Michigan went down 11-2, despite goalkeeper Betsey Armstrong's 13 saves.

The next two games went much better for the Wolverines. Against the Sun Devils, six different Michigan players scored en route to a 7-5 win. Jo Antonsen, in just her second game back since she was injured in February, scored two goals.

"It was just fortunate for Jo, after playing in just her second game back after being out for a month, to get her touch back," Anderson said. "We're getting our players back, and that's what we want to do. We have to get healthy."

Senior Abbi Rowe also eased back into play this weekend for the first time in weeks.

"It feels great to be back," Rowe said yesterday. "After just a couple minutes in the water, I felt right at home."

Although Antonsen and Rowe made successful returns to competition this weekend, Michigan still wasn't completely healthy. Sophomore Erin Brown and junior Stephanie Rupp both sat out because of a flu bug that Anderson said has been afflicting the coaching staff and the team for the past week.

Still, the Wolverines held together well enough to pick up the impressive win yesterday. The last time they faced San Jose State was in January, when the Spartans claimed an 8-3 victory at Canham Natatorium. This time Michigan came out on top, 6-4, supported by strong play all around.

Armstrong once again led the defense, saving two crucial four-meter shots and bringing her record on penalty shots for the weekend to three saved out of five shots taken. Earlier in the weekend, Armstrong set a Michigan record by notching her 500th career save against Loyola Marymount.

"We expect a lot from Betsey and she always backs it up," Rowe said, adding that Sheetal Narsai's scoring and Julie Nisbet's ability to draw three four-meter penalties also impressed her.

Anderson also praised Armstrong and Narsai.

"With Betsey, it feels like we have the advantage on the four-meter shot," he said. "And it seems like the tougher opponent we play, the more goals Sheetal scores."

Narsai scored three goals, all of them on four-meter penalty shots. Sophomore Casey Kerney added a pair, and Nisbet also scored to bring the final tally to six. San Jose State couldn't capitalize on its two penalty shots.

"I think (this weekend) was a great accomplishment," Rowe said. "We played well together, and we really proved that we can stick it out."

Anderson said that this tournament was a great way to get ready for next weekend's Southern Division Championships, in which the Wolverines will be the top seed.

"I wanted them to bang heads with three extremely tough teams so we don't get blind-sided next weekend," he said. "We need to get refocused, and in order to get where we want to be, I felt we needed to play teams that are arguably better than us to show us that we have to wake up if we want to defend our Eastern title."

The Wolverines head into the Southern Division Championship with a perfect conference record. The top six finishers move on to the Eastern Championship at the end of April, where they will have a chance to get a bid to the NCAA Final Four.