#4 UCLA Women’s Water Polo Hosts #1 Stanford in an MPSF Showdown

Last night, UCLA began its Stanford weekend by beating the Cardinal in both baseball and softball. This afternoon, the women’s water polo teams start the day with a game at noon.

While Stanford is ranked #1 in the nation, they are currently in fourth place in the MPSF with an 0-1 record. That’s because they lost their only MPSF game to UC Berkeley, 9-8, in sudden death overtime. Meanwhile, the Bruins are in second place with a 2-1 record. Today’s game is important because it will determine seeding in the MPSF Tournament at the end of April.

At this point, #4 UCLA needs to go as deep into the MPSF Tournament as possible because their NCAA Tournament hopes are riding on it. Right now, the Bruins might not get an at-large bid. That’s another reason a win today would really help UCLA.

Today is also UCLA’s last home game of the season, which means that it’s Senior Day and senior Alexis Angermund, Devin Grab and Nicole Reynolds will be honored before the start of today’s game.

Last weekend, the Bruins faced #6 Arizona State. The Sun Devils scored the only goal of the first quarter to take the early lead, but the Bruins responded with four second quarter goals by Bronte Halligan, Devin Grab, Maddie Musselman and Grace Reego over the last 3:49 of the first half. Reego’s goal with just seven second left in the half proved to be the game-winning goal.

UCLA picked up where they left off as the third quarter started when Halligan scored just 28 seconds into the period to give the Bruins a 5-1 lead. The Sun Devils would close the gap to 5-3 with two goals in the quarter, but that was all the offense they could put together.

In the fourth quarter, the Bruin defense held Arizona State scoreless while Lizette Rozeboom added one more insurance goal for UCLA and the Bruin won 6-3.

Today’s game against Stanford doesn’t look to be quite as easy for UCLA. The Cardinal crushed the Bruins 10-3 in the only other meeting between the teams so far this season when they met six weeks ago at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational. Hopefully, the Bruins play much better today than they did then.

This is your UCLA Bruins vs. Stanford Cardinal women’s water polo open thread.


Go Bruins!!!