Great Opening for Michigan Water Polo; For Arizona State, Not So Much
This weekend marked the opening of the 2022 NCAA women’s water polo season, and it did not disappoint—unless you were a fan of the Sun Devils of Arizona State. Hosting their own tournament, Head Coach Todd Clapper’s squad—which will certainly fall from the lofty #4 rank they held in the CWPA preseason poll—dropped all four of its opening weekend matches including a gut wrenching 11-10 loss to # 7 UC-Irvine.
[Here We Go Again: 2022 NCAA Women’s Water Polo Preseason Poll]
One of the teams which inflicted a loss on ASU at Mona Plummer Aquatic Center was #8 Michigan (3-1), which enjoyed a scintillating weekend under the desert sun. After predictably dropping their season-opening match to #5 Cal (4-0) on Friday, the Wolverines stunned #6 UC-Irvine, taking a 7-6 decision Saturday morning. Head Coach Marcelo Leonardi’s team followed that win with a thrilling OT win over their hosts, beating the Sun Devils 10-8.
[NCAA Women’s Water Polo Starts Today but COVID Concerns Persist]
Michigan then completed their excellent adventure by beating Fresno State 9-7 on Sunday, the best opening weekend of play since Leonardi took over the program from Matt Anderson in 2015.
[Connecticut College's Matt Anderson on Camel Water Polo, Life in Division III]
Not to be outdone by Midwesterners, the Bulldogs of FSU (1-3) also knocked off ASU; in fact, their 11-8 win in the opening match of the ASU Cross Conference Challenge was the first salvo in a weekend of dramatic decision as NCAA women’s polo looks to conduct a full season of competition for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020.
Cal—which returned Olympians Kitty Lynn Joustra (with The Netherlands) and Emma Wright (on the Canadian squad) was never headed in sweeping four opponents with a +26 goal differential, including a dominant 16-8 over UCI (2-2). The Anteaters got 10 goals from fifth-year senior Tara Prentice, one of the country’s top players.
Tara Prentice registered 10 goals over four matches for UC-Irvine. Photo: UCI Athletics
#18 UC Santa Barbara, which was profoundly impacted last season by a coronavirus outbreak that ended the Gauchos’ season after only eight matches, hosted the 2022 UCSB Winter Invite, the other big tournament from the weekend.
[2022 UCSB Winter Invite Tournament Central]
With 12 teams and 27 matches, the Winter Invite was a fantastic measuring stick for four programs that—due to COVID-19—had barely played the past two years. Host UCSB beat Ottawa 19-7 in its first match since March of last year, then dropped a 15-7 decision to #16 San Jose State. The Gauchos then captured three one-goal wins against Eastern clubs who had not played for 23 months. A 16-15 win over Wagner on Saturday morning was followed by a 15-14 win over Princeton in the afternoon.
UCSB made it a trifecta against the East with a 14-13 OT win Sunday morning. The afternoon saw mighty UCLA—#3 in the CWPA preseason poll—finish off a perfect weekend by beating their hosts 21-8 and taking revenge on the home team which had tagged UCLA with a 9-8 loss in the opening weekend of the 2019 season.
The revenge win was part of a 5-0 weekend that saw Maddie Musselman, UCLA’s two-time Olympian, don the Bruins’ blue and gold for the first time since the 2019 NCAA playoffs. The big story for Adam Wright’s team was not Musselmen’s 14 goals, but an offensive explosion that saw the Bruins outscore their opponents 88-26—fueled by nine-goal outbursts each from Val Ayala, Ava Johnson and Nicole Struss.
UCLA’s Val Ayala had a great start to what could be her last season in Westwood.
After waiting so long to compete, #19 Princeton opened its first match in 692 days with an 18-9 win over #21 Cal-Baptist. Driving that win was a six-goal effort by center Jovana Sekulic, part of a 14-goal effort by the freshman from Serbia who played for the Episcopal Academy outside of Philadelphia. The Tigers split their four matches, chalking up a 12-9 win over East Coast rival Iona and a heart-breaking OT loss to #9 UC San Diego.
Brown, like Princeton a member of the Ivy League, waited 685 days to face a live opponent. The 16-5 win over Ottawa was worth the wait; the Bears followed this win up with a tough 10-9 loss to Azusa Pacific, a 13-6 loss to San Jose State and the OT loss to the Gauchos before flying home.
Wagner—the third Eastern team out West which had gone almost two years away from competition—went 2-2 at Santa Barbara. The big win for the Seahawks was a 9-8 triumph over the Tritons of UC San Diego; they also beat Asuza Pacific but dropped a 15-8 decision to the Bruins as well as the one-goal loss to the Gauchos. Wagner was led by Sofia Diaz Alvarez with 10 goals, 8 assists and three steals.
There was one other tournament on the weekend; Long Beach State (2-0) hosted The Beach Invite with four other teams. The host 49ers—ranked —easily went 2-0 with big wins over Pomona-Pitzer and Whittier. The only significant match was two SCIAC teams facing each other at LBS. Whittier and Pomona-Pitzer took 2021 off while La Verne played three games. When Whittier faced the Leopards of La Verne, it was the first match for the Poets in two years. The 12-6 win for Whittier was worth the wait; LBS brought David Kasa’s team back to reality with a 22-3 blow out, perhaps signaling a long season ahead.