UCLA women’s water polo to compete with seasoned starters

After falling to Stanford in a 5-3 defensive battle during last year’s NCAA championship semifinals, the UCLA women’s water polo team is anxious to get back into the pool.

“We can’t wait to start playing,” said sophomore attacker Rachel Fattal.

Although the team went on to beat Hawai’i 13-8 in the third-place game, coach Brandon Brooks said he thinks the Bruins can improve this year.

“We want better than that,” Brooks said. “The hope for the season is to be the best team we can be. If that ends up in a championship, then we would be happy.”

The Bruins have the right personnel to potentially turn those hopes into reality this season. In addition to Fattal, four other Bruins – junior attacker Emily Donohoe, freshman utility Mackenzie Barr, sophomore defender Alys Williams and sophomore attacker Kodi Hill – played on the U.S. Women’s Junior National Team in 2013, winning gold at the FINA World Junior Water Polo Championships in Volos, Greece. Fattal also played with the Women’s Senior National Team last summer, and sophomore center Alexa Tielmann played for her native Canada.

Brooks expects those players to contribute consistently throughout the season coming off of their international experience.

On top of their international play, the Bruins played several games together during the summer, building on what Fattal described as a season of bonding with teammates.

Although Donohoe said the Bruins are still working on playing cohesively, only three seniors graduated last year, leaving a largely intact core of starters. Brooks said that part of the focus at practices during the preseason has been on getting used to playing as a different team from last year.

One of the biggest differences for UCLA is the influx of five freshmen to the team. While Brooks expects Barr to see “a good amount of time” in her first season with the Bruins, he indicated that playing time for the other freshmen will be determined over the season.

According to Brooks, practices so far have taken the team back to the fundamentals of the game, specifically shot blocking and general fitness, in addition to team cohesion on offense.

The Bruins will need those skills throughout the season as they face a tough schedule of opponents.

“It’s pretty amazing the way the talent has come up in the women’s game,” Brooks said of the past couple years. “Teams (ranked) one to 12 can all beat each other on any given day.”

Brooks also pointed out that, even given the high level of play across the country, only UCLA, USC and Stanford have won national titles since the NCAA adopted women’s water polo as a championship sport in 2001. While UCLA has won seven of the 13 championship games, the team has failed to win a title since former coach Adam Krikorian left the team in 2009 to coach the U.S. Women’s Senior National Team.

Brooks added that other teams are in the hunt for the title as well.

“Cal is very hungry, ASU has steadily gotten better and UCI is looking to have a banner year,” Brooks said.

UCLA will face those three teams, as well as USC and Stanford, throughout the season.

First up for the Bruins is a four-game set at the UCLA Invitational this weekend at Spieker Aquatics Center, where they will face Concordia University, California Baptist, CSU Bakersfield and Loyola Marymount.

Although No. 14 LMU, the only other ranked team at the invitational, trails No. 3 UCLA in the preseason rankings, Donohoe said LMU is still on the Bruins’ radar.

“We always meet up with LMU, so that’s a team we are pretty familiar with,” Donohoe said. “We gotta go out and play that game.”