{"id":299807,"date":"2018-03-09T10:30:18","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T17:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=299807"},"modified":"2018-03-09T10:22:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T17:22:52","slug":"catching-up-with-ucla-water-polos-bronte-halligan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/catching-up-with-ucla-water-polos-bronte-halligan\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching Up with UCLA Water Polo\u2019s Bronte Halligan"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n

If UCLA<\/a> is to capture its first NCAA women\u2019s water polo title since Adam Krikorian<\/strong> left in 2009, it will be due to the efforts of players like Bronte Halligan<\/strong>. The sophomore from Sydney, Australia is a proven commodity as a member of the Stingers, the Australian national women\u2019s water polo team. But after a devastating one-goal loss<\/a> to Stanford in the 2017 NCAA championship, Halligan and her Bruin teammates are still searching for their signature moment in American varsity polo.<\/p>\n

\"ucla\"<\/p>\n

Born into a family of Australian athletic royalty\u2014her father Daryl<\/a> was a star goal-kicker in the National Rugby League while Halligan\u2019s sister Devon is a former Surf Life Saving world champion\u2014but it\u2019s Bronte who has the best chance at reaching the sporting world\u2019s highest pinnacle: the Olympics. A member of the Australian team who represented her country in the past two FINA World Water Polo Championships, she was the last cut from the Stingers’ squad that finished sixth in the 2016 Rio Olympics.<\/p>\n

But Australia\u2019s loss has decidedly been UCLA\u2019s gain; in her second year in Westwood, Halligan has notched 17 goals and 20 assists for Adam Wright\u2019s<\/strong> 4th ranked<\/a> Bruins (16-2). In a recent interview with Swimming World<\/em> on the pool deck of the Spieker Aquatics Center, Halligan spoke of her childhood playing netball and polo on Sydney\u2019s northern beaches, the influence of her family on her sporting pursuits, and how the impact of a new coach could finally get the Bruins past arch-rival Stanford and a record eighth NCAA title.<\/p>\n

– How did you get involved with water polo?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I grew up playing a lot of different sports. Given the sporting background of my dad, sports were always in my family. We all were good at any water sport; we did swimming and stuff like that, including netball, which is a big sport in Australia.<\/p>\n

When I was 11 years old, my mom took me to my first water polo tryout. I threw a tantrum \u2013 I didn\u2019t want to get in the water because I was late coming from another practice. She picked me up and threw me into the pool. From that day forward I\u2019ve played water polo.<\/p>\n

When I was 14 I had a big decision to make; water polo or netball. I picked water polo.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had some big influences I water polo. I grew up on the northern beaches in Sydney, which has placed three Olympians in the last two teams. We definitely do have talent down there, it\u2019s a big sporting community.<\/p>\n

Hannah Buckling<\/strong> was my idol growing up\u2014she\u2019s a good friend of mine now\u2014and also Holly Lincoln-Smith<\/strong>. I was fortunate to play for the Stingers in two world championships with her and I played with Holly for one. They both came from my club and I watched them as I grew up. They nurtured me and pushed me through the sport. Hannah also came over to the States and played for USC, so I wanted to follow in her footsteps.<\/p>\n

– How did your father\u2019s success in his sport influence your pursuit of water polo?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s been awesome having a dad who was a professional athlete. You can\u2019t get better guidance than that as a child. It helped that it wasn\u2019t the same [sport]; it would drive me insane if my dad were in this sport! To this day he still wants to put his two cents in.<\/p>\n

\"daryl_brooke\"

Brooke & Daryl Halligan. Photo Courtesy: The Daily Telegraph<\/p><\/div>\n

He retired when I was four, so I don\u2019t remember much of his playing. But I do remember sitting in the cockpit with the cheerleaders and going to games wearing a little jersey that said \u201cDad\u201d on the back with his number.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a super awesome experience having him guide me through different sporting events and specific wins and losses. At the 2016 Rio selections I was unfortunate to miss out. The first person I turned to was my dad. I got a phone call from the coach; he said it\u2019s unfortunate we\u2019re not taking you. We\u2019ll take you as first reserve if you want to. It\u2019s your decision. And then my dad pulled me aside and said: Let\u2019s go for a walk. He talked me through the time he missed out on his world cup team, which was the biggest competition for him.<\/p>\n

That was a defining moment in his career in rugby; that was the year he changed codes from rugby union to rugby league. To this day he\u2019s made a bigger name in league than he ever would have in union.<\/p>\n

He told me: \u201cYes it\u2019s gonna hurt. But it\u2019s how you move forward from this that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

– You ended up in America, playing for UCLA, 7,500 miles away from home.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I graduated high school in 2014. I had planned to come here in 2015. I had been talking to the [UCLA] coaches, and my Australian national team coach said the best chance for you to make the Olympic games is for you to stay in Australia and train full time.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my dream; that\u2019s why I\u2019m in the sport. I stayed in Australia and trained full time. I thought about going to university back home but I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet and I was only 18. I was happy to just hang out, train, work and go home to my mom and dad.<\/p>\n

Whether I made the Olympic squad or not I knew that I wanted to get out of Australian water polo. I\u2019d been in it for so long\u2014from 12 until 19. I wanted to go and explore the world and get my degree in one of the best colleges in the world.<\/p>\n

– Any regrets about that decision two years into your career in Westwood?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably been the best thing I\u2019ve done. I miss my family a lot and it\u2019s hard to be away from them. But, having a dad who played and coached professional rugby and who was in and out of home for most of our childhood because that\u2019s the way he earned his money, my family is so used to being away.<\/p>\n

When I made the decision to come East my family was excited. They\u2019ve come to visit me, and coming here, I hadn\u2019t studied for two years because I graduated and trained full-time, but I love studying. It makes me excited that I can pursue something outside of water polo.<\/p>\n

– How does coming to America prepare you for wherever your future takes you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My life will point back to Australia. I definitely want to move home, but I don\u2019t know when that will be. I want to take as many opportunities as I can within the sport of water polo for as long as I can. I will consider maybe going to Europe to play a year or two after I finish my career here. I hopefully will have one Olympics under my belt by then.<\/p>\n

Everyone always says you will be in the sport for so long, but I do want to pursue nursing. That\u2019s also what was awesome about having my dad and mom so supportive. Yes, they pushed me to do all my sports and achieve everything I can, but at the same time they\u2019re always pushing us outside of sports as well. My older sister was a professional athlete for a while. She\u2019s about to graduate with a civil engineering degree.<\/p>\n

My baby sister just got into Harvard, so she\u2019s going to play in the water polo program there. She spoke to a few schools, including Stanford, even [UCLA], but she didn\u2019t want to come where I was. The youngest of four she wanted to strike out on her own.<\/p>\n

– You\u2019re chasing your Olympic dreams and are now a big part of Australian polo’s future.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My Olympic dream started when I was eight years old. Me and mom were watching the 2004 Olympics in Athens and my mom said: \u201cWhich of you kids is going to take me to the Olympics?!\u201d I didn’t even know about water polo then but I turned around and said: \u201cMom, I\u2019m going to be the kid to take you to the Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UCLA

Photo Courtesy: Don_Liebig<\/p><\/div>\n

Everyone asked: What\u2019s your Olympic sport? I didn’t think about that at the time. I fell in love with water polo before I even knew it was an Olympic sport.<\/p>\n

Last year in Budapest, World Championships in 2017 with the Stingers, and that was awesome because we\u2019ve had a lot of girls retire. It\u2019s my turn now to step up and play bigger minutes.<\/p>\n

Nothing beats playing on Margaret Island<\/a>\u2014Polo Island, famous around the world\u2014Budapest, the capital of water polo in the world. Whether I was playing in the round games or the quarterfinals, every minute was so special\u2014even going to watch the games.<\/p>\n

That experience does drive me to keep going. We didn\u2019t get a great result\u2014we\u2019re a really young team\u2014we have a new coach and I\u2019m excited for the future of the Aussie Stingers because we can push boundaries now, especially with the change that\u2019s coming with 11 players.<\/p>\n

– Americans that you play with as teammates in UCLA become opponents when you face them in international play?<\/strong><\/p>\n

NCAA women\u2019s water polo is the strongest league in the world at the moment for anyone our age. It\u2019s where you\u2019ve got the Olympic gold medalist team, and you want to follow that team to the league. We\u2019ve got a lot of different international players here in the league, and then playing with people like Rachel Fattal<\/strong> and Maddie Musselman<\/strong> and living with them day-in-day out and going to college with them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny going back and playing them in international competition. But, when your suits are on, your country\u2019s colors are on your back and the whistle\u2019s blown it\u2019s, no more friendship. None of that. You\u2019re completely, 100% for your team. When the whistle blows at the end of the game it\u2019s shake hands, give each other a hug, and get back to normal.<\/p>\n

The first time after last season, the women played in China in the FINA World Water Polo League Super Finals and our first game up against the U.S.\u2014two minutes in\u2014I cracked Maddie\u2019s nose in four places, purely on accident. She knew exactly when that happened [that] I would never hurt her intentionally. It was a bad turn and my foot hit her face. But, she\u2019s good now, and we\u2019re still friends. We can still rumble with each other in the water.<\/p>\n

– UCLA women\u2019s water polo is under new management; how has the transition been to Coach Wright?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obviously last year was a really disappointing loss. Anyone would have looked at that team on paper and said we should have taken [the NCAA title] home. But, that\u2019s the way sport works; someone\u2019s gotta win and someone\u2019s got lose. I was sorry to see the shirt seniors go without a national championship\u2014they definitely deserved it.<\/p>\n

We come from UCLA water polo royalty\u2014Kelly Rulon<\/strong> and all that\u2014and coming from the history you just want to make them all proud of you. So when you look back on the season last year it\u2019s disappointing. It was a tough loss but I think we\u2019ve moved on.<\/p>\n

It was disappointing to see Coach [Brandon] Brooks<\/strong> go and Molly Cahill<\/strong>, the assistant coach, but I think it was a good decision<\/a> by UCLA Athletics. Adam is a fantastic coach\u2014one of the best I\u2019ve ever had. He\u2019s so knowledgeable within the game, and having played at such a high level for so long.<\/p>\n

He makes sure that everything is done to the best of your ability and expect nothing less than the utmost perfection. He pushes us day-in and day-out.<\/p>\n

We have a lot of inexperience on the team but that\u2019s not a bad thing\u2014it\u2019s been awesome. We\u2019ve seen girls cone out of their shells and step up.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m excited to see where Adam can take us. He just took the men to an NCAA title last year. We all witnessed that first-hand. We all had goosebumps because that was our coach.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that because Adam\u2019s here we\u2019re going to win, but he\u2019s going to push us to be better.<\/p>\n

– Standing in the way of everyone\u2019s NCAA dreams is Stanford.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stanford\u2019s got a lot of hype around them as a team, they\u2019ve got a lot of confidence, which is amazing. They may drop a game here and there but their confidence will always pick them up.<\/p>\n

\"stanford\"<\/p>\n

In saying that, it\u2019s always easier to take someone out when they\u2019re at the top. They\u2019ve got a long way to fall, and I\u2019m confident we can do it if we play to our structures\u2014sound water polo that is everything with a purpose.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re a high-risk, high reward team who currently are gambling big but they\u2019re getting paid for it.<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t win games against them 10-12; we\u2019ll win games 5-4. We want to slow them down and make sure we do everything right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Randazzo, Swimming World Contributor If UCLA is to capture its first NCAA women\u2019s water polo title since Adam Krikorian left in 2009, it will be due to the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4875,"featured_media":299813,"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":[3,12],"tags":[53330,3384,383,66748,4368,61256,66745,66747,66746,16949,37598,60192,32490,27870,60272,66749,60863],"class_list":["post-299807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-water-polo","tag-2016-rio-olympics","tag-adam-krikorian","tag-adam-wright","tag-australian-womens-water-polo","tag-brandon-brooks","tag-bronte-halligan","tag-daryl-halligan","tag-hannah-buckling","tag-holly-lincoln-smith","tag-kelly-rulon","tag-maddie-musselman","tag-michael-randazzo","tag-rachel-fattal","tag-spieker-aquatics-center","tag-stanford-water-polo","tag-stingers","tag-ucla-womens-water-polo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nCatching Up with UCLA Water Polo\u2019s Bronte Halligan - 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