By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor
INDIANAPOLIS, IN. #1 UCLA avoided a classic “trap game,” beating California 14-11 in NCAA semifinal action yesterday, advancing to the 2017 NCAA Women’s Water Polo Tournament title game. Waiting for the Bruins in today’s 3 p.m. final at the Indianapolis Natatorium will be a familiar foe; #2 Stanford, who dispatched USC 11-10 in the day’s other semifinal.
The Cardinal, appearing in a record eighth-straight NCAA title match, will face a Bruins squad that contains seven players from the teams they beat in the 2014 and 2015 NCAA title matches.
To punch their ticket to Sunday’s final, top-seeded UCLA needed to get past a pesky Bears team that had pushed the Bruins to the limit two weeks ago before dropping a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Tournament semifinal match by a 9-8 margin.
Freshman sensation Maddie Musselman led all scorers on Saturday with four goals. The MPSF Newcomer of the Year—now with 66 goals in her first season in Westwood—said that resilience was key to beating back the Bears.
“Sometimes we were scrambling but something that I thought was awesome was our resilience, coming back after we got scored on,” Musselman said following the match.
“Whether we gave up goals in the halfcourt or 6 on 5 we didn’t let it get to us. We just kept grinding away.”
UCLA coach Brandon Brooks agreed that Saturday’s win was a gut check—and his team passed.
“I love the word ‘resilience’ that Maddie used,” Brooks said. “That’s what championship caliber teams do. In the moment they dig down a little deeper and the find a way to get stops.”
Stops is exactly what the Bruins got when they needed it, especially on the power play. Cal was able to stay within striking distance of a deeper UCLA squad in the first half by converting an impressive five of six chances with the man advantage. But adjustments by the Bruins after halftime combined with a game exclusion on Cal’s Emma Wright early in the third period proved decisive. The Bears failed on three of their final four power play attempts of the game and simply could never overcome an early Bruin lead.
“Losing Emma from the rights side, being left-handed, was huge for us [as] she creates a lot for us offensively,” Cal head coach Coralie Simmons said. “We lose that ability to move the ball around” and create scoring opportunities.
Musselman scored on UCLA’s first possession of the game but Cal answered immediately as Wright, their star freshman, hammered a three-meter shot past UCLA goalie Carlee Kapana. 2017 Cutino Award finalist Rachal Fattal put UCLA up 2-1 on the Bruins next possession to start a run of three straight goals that threatened to turn the match into a rout.
Cal recovered as the Bears punished the Bruins on two straight power plays—exploiting UCLA’s defensive weakness in 6 on 5 play—to trail 5-3 after one period. The teams kept trading goals in the second, which ended with UCLA ahead 9-6. Fattal notched another goal and senior Mackenzie Barr sandwiched two around a score by senior Alys Williams.
When Anna Illes (three goals) scored right before halftime it completed a run of five-straight Cal power play goals. But the Bears—who never crept closer than three scores—were also piling up exclusions of their own. Dora Antal (three goals) took a costly second kick-out late in the second period, causing Simmons to keep her on the bench right after halftime. Then Wright got rolled early in the third.
Simmons said that while her team’s ability to attack was impaired by penalties, UCLA came up big defensively late in the game when needed.
“We got some good attempts and they made some big field saves,” she said. “It’s a matter of inches and they had some great reads where we were shooting the ball.”
Just after notching her third goal of the game Musselman was whistled for two exclusion a minute apart—the second coming midway through the third period—sending her to the bench for an extended period. Despite the loss of their most dynamic offensive player, UCLA was never threatened. Fattal (three goals) and Barr (three goals) kept the scoring offense up and the UCLA defense, after allowing 10 goals through three periods, limited Cal to a single goal by Carla Carrega—on the power play—with a minute left in the game.
Following the win Barr, who was with the Bruins for those painful NCAA losses to Stanford, spoke about yet another crack at a national championship.
“Everything that we worked so long for, to have a chance to accomplish that is going to be stressful, in a high-intensity game,” she said. “How we show resilience like we did today is going to be very important.”
Musselman, in her first NCAA title match following a summer where she and Fattal won Olympic gold with the U.S. Women’s National Team, is simply enjoying the moment.
“I’m excited to play with this team because it’s never going to be the same again,” she said. “I’m taking advantage of this moment and embracing it.”