IRVINE, California, May 1. AFTER defeating No. 7 UC-Irvine on Friday and battling past No. 2 UCLA on Saturday, the No. 3 Stanford Cardinal were in action at Irvine's Anteater Aquatics Complex for their third straight match on Sunday. This time, the Cardinal chased the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation women's water polo championship against No. 5 Hawaii.<\/p>\n
Head coach John Tanner's squad proved up to the task. Stanford used a steady offensive attack to clinch the 6-3 victory over Hawaii and earned the MPSF title. The win improved Stanford's record to 22-4 overall and 10-2 in the MPSF, while Hawaii dropped to 17-10 overall and 7-5 in MPSF play. Stanford and Hawaii faced off once during the regular season on March 28 in Honolulu, with Stanford taking a 12-6 win. <\/p>\n
Hawaii jumped out to an early 2-0 lead but the Cardinal battled back with three unanswered goals over the next six minutes of play, grabbing a 3-2 lead with 4:05 to go in the first half. Juniors Alison Gregorka (Ann Arbor, MI), Katie Hansen (Coronado, CA) and freshman Lauren Silver (Long Beach, CA) put shots into the back of the net for the Cardinal. <\/p>\n
Hawaii tied the score at 3-3 with a goal from Kelly Mason with 1:37 to go in the half, but junior Christina Hewko (Newport Beach, CA) got the lead back for Stanford with a goal at the :41 mark. After the break, Stanford turned up the defensive intensity and held Hawaii scoreless for the final 14 minutes of play. Silver scored her second goal of the game in the third period to give the Cardinal a 5-3 lead, and senior Nancy El-Sakkary (Dollar des Ormeaux, Quebec) capped the scoring with a fourth quarter goal that made it 6-3. <\/p>\n
Junior goalkeeper Meridith McColl (Mission Viejo, CA) finished with seven saves. Silver's two scores gave her 47 for the season, extending her team lead to two over second-leading scorer Hansen, who now has 45 goals. Up next, the Cardinal will await seedings for the NCAA Tournament, which will take place on the campus of UC Davis from May 12-14. <\/p>\n
In the third-place game, UCLA notched a 10-7 decision over USC. Meanwhile, California secured a 7-6 triumph over Arizona State for fifth place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
IRVINE, California, May 1. AFTER defeating No. 7 UC-Irvine on Friday and battling past No. 2 UCLA on Saturday, the No. 3 Stanford Cardinal were in action at Irvine's Anteater<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n