Women’s water polo sinks Cal to claim third in MPSF tournament
UCLA was forced to compete for third place after losing to Stanford in the MPSF tournament, but junior attacker Kelsey O’Brien said that only motivated the team. (Keila Mayberry/Daily Bruin staff)
By Savannah Shapiro
May 2, 2016 3:48 a.m.
The final game of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament was a mirror image of last year’s matchup with just one slight difference.
Instead of dueling it out for the championship title like last season, both No. 2 UCLA (24-4, 5-1 MPSF) and No. 6 California (21-10, 2-4) were trying to secure the third-place finish within its conference.
Like most games between the Golden Bears and the Bruins, the entire game was a back-and-forth fight up until the fourth quarter where the Bruins were able to secure the 7-5 win Sunday afternoon.
“We kind of checked ourselves after our loss to Stanford yesterday and we really stepped up in this game – not just individually, but as a whole on both offense and defense,” said junior attacker Kelsey O’Brien.
The largest lead for the Bruins was in the third quarter as they separated themselves from the Golden Bears by three goals. The 6-3 cushion almost proved to be not enough as Cal continued to cut the deficit down to 6-5 in the fourth quarter.
O’Brien gave UCLA one last goal on a power play with 44 seconds remaining in the game to solidify the third-place win.
“Ashley made a great pass and everyone on the perimeter was drawing their players and going all out for it,” O’Brien said. “I didn’t even shoot it that well, but Ashley made that great pass and I was able to just get enough on it to put it in.”
In the cage for the Bruins, senior goalkeeper Alex Musselman registered 11 saves as the remaining defenders accumulated a total of eight steals against the Bears.
“Sometimes you just know you’ve missed your block or you’ve missed your player, and to have Alex make those huge saves just keeps our momentum going forward rather than backwards,” O’Brien said.
No. 1 USC claimed the championship title at this year’s MPSF tournament, earning an automatic bid into the upcoming NCAA championship. No. 3 Stanford, who UCLA fell to in the semifinal matchup, took second place in the tournament.
The third-place MPSF conference win does not guarantee anything for UCLA in the upcoming NCAAs, but it places them in a good position to receive a seed headed into the final tournament of the season. The NCAA selection show on May 2 will determine where UCLA falls in the NCAA championship.
“We have about two more weeks of really good practice,” O’Brien said. “It’s not really a lot of time, but I think everyone’s real excited and ready to step up to the opportunity.”
Email Shapiro at [email protected] or tweet her @savannahshapiro.
