Bruin Bites: Women's Hoops Destroyed by Notre Dame, Women's Soccer Celebrates #110

While this past week in non-revenue action lacked a lot of variety, the national champion women's soccer team more than made up for it with their heart-stopping come-from-behind PK win over Virginia in the semi-final, followed bytheir OT golden goal winner against Florida State to clinch UCLA's 110th NCAA national title. But with the Lady Bruins done until next fall, we hit the annual winter lull between the end of most of the fall-based sports (men's water polo, both soccer teams, women's volleyball) and the beginning of the spring-based sports (women's water polo, men's volleyball, softball, baseball), so it was quiet around the wider UCLA-iverse. But despite that, let's take a look at the various bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse:

• Beginning with our newest national champions, Morgan Center finally got around to updating the official UCLA athletics website to mention that coach Amanda Cromwell and her Lady Bruins' soccer program brought home a national title to Westwood. It's late, but the official athletics website has a recap of the championship game, with links to video highlights of the massive victory and the post-victory press conference.
• In terms of the post-victory press conference, the official website pulled together a collection of quotesfrom Cromwell, game-winning-scorer Kodi Lavrusky, midfield engineer Sam Mewis, and the brilliant Megan Oyster, who played the beautiful through ball to Lavrusky to win it for UCLA.
• As for Cori Close's women's basketball program, the past week wasn't kind as the Lady Bruins got annihilated on Saturday in South Bend, as the Fighting Irish put the beat-down on UCLA, 90-48. In a comprehensive victory, the Fighting Irish got a big lead early and just kept piling on the Bruins, even after running out to a 44-20 lead at half. Atonye Nyingifa (19 points, 10 rebounds, 4 steals) and Thea Lemberger (17 points, 2 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals) were the only relatively bright spots in a completely dismal effort by the Bruins on the road. With the demoralizing loss, the Bruins fall to 3-5 oveall and will next be in action against San Diego State down in Ron Burgundy's hometown this Sunday.

Alright folks, like I said above, it was a slower-than-normal week for UCLA in the wider non-revenue related UCLA-iverse. Those are your Bruin Bites for this Tuesday morning. Fire away in the comment thread with your additions, opinions, and takeaways as we wait for the return of football on New Year's Eve.

GO BRUINS