Collegiate Women’s Water Polo Weekend Roundup

PHOENIX, Arizona, January 31. IF you wanted to watch women's NCAA water polo last weekend, the best place to be was Santa Barbara, Calif. The UCSB Gauchos hosted their Winter Invitational Jan. 25-27. The tournament featured 17 teams, including No. 1 Stanford, No. 3 UCLA, No. 5 Arizona State, No. 6 UC Irvine and No. 8 Loyola Marymount.

Also competing were Azusa Pacific, Cal Baptist, Concordia, Santa Clara, UC San Diego, Sonoma State, Cal State Northridge, Pomona-Pitzer, Cal State Bakersfield, Pacific and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

The competition was held at two venues–the Campus Pool and the Recreation Center Pool. UCSB started off the three-day event with a 11-3 victory over Azusa Pacific, and ended the tournament with a 15-7 triumph over Pomona-Pitzer. In between those two contests, a total of 36 water polo matches were played.

For complete results, please visit the UCSB tournament web page.

But that wasn't the only action that took place last weekend. The 10th-ranked Michigan Wolverines took a trip to California, losing to top-ranked Stanford Jan. 25 (11-2), ninth-ranked San Jose State (9-4) and fourth-ranked UC Berkeley (14-7).

Stanford jumped out to a 4-1 lead after the first quarter and never looked back. Michigan freshman Bryce Beckwith scored in the first quarter, and senior Kiki Golden found the goal in the second quarter to give Michigan their two goals. Cardinal senior Melissa Seidemann led all scorers with five, and freshman Anna Yelizarova contributed two to pace the team.

The next day, California's senior goalie Alex Adamson earned a total of 13 saves, bringing her career save total to 486–putting her second all-time in career saves among Michigan's goalies. She earned eight of those saves against the San Jose Spartans in the first match of the day.

However, San Jose State scored five unanswered goals in the second half on their way to a 9-4 win. Freshman Rae Lekness scored five goals, three of them in the second half. Sophomore Timi Molnar put three goals in the net, and junior Rachael Henry scored once. Goalie Maddie Reardon saved nine shots for San Jose State; Golden was the top scorer for Michigan with two.

Michigan started out with a 2-1 edge over California midway through the first quarter, courtesy of goals by junior Lauren Dudley and Pender. Golden Bear junior Ashley Young scored twice in the final 90 seconds of the first quarter on her way to a three-goal game. Cal pulled away to put together a 14-7 victory.

Senior Brenda Vosters also scored three goals for the Golden Bears, and sophomore Kelly McKee contributed two. Michigan freshman Emily Sejna scored the third of her three goals just 36 seconds down in the fourth. With her goal in the fourth quarter, Golden became the fourth-leading Wolverine career goal scorer with 160.

The rest of the top 10 women's teams were off this week. The second-ranked USC Trojans begin competition the weekend of Feb. 9-10 at the UCSD Triton Invitational. San Diego State, seventh in the nation, will face Cal State San Bernardino and Cal State Bakersfield Feb. 2 at the Lancer Mini Invitational in Riverside. Princeton, who is tied for tenth with Michigan, begins play Feb. 8-9 as they host the Princeton Invitational.

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