Water polo handles the elements en route to 16-1 flooding of Irvine
Sophomore goalie Carlee Kapana recorded 12 saves in cage as the nation’s-best No. 3 UCLA defense held No. 6 UC Irvine to one goal in its home opener Friday evening. (Aubrey Yeo/Daily Bruin senior staff)
By Michael Hull
Feb. 18, 2017 2:24 p.m.
Of the outdoor Los Angeles-area games UCLA had scheduled Friday, the largest storm in the past several years cancelled all but one.
UCLA women’s water polo’s 2017 home opener continued as planned – the Bruins warmed up, competed and cooled down under a continuous sheet of rain.
“The first half, I couldn’t really see people on the counterattack because the steam was uplifting when they would swim,” said sophomore goalie Carlee Kapana.
But as the saying goes, when it rains, it pours, and when it was all said and done, No. 3 UCLA (8-0) left Spieker Aquatics Center with a whopping 16-1 win over No. 6 UC Irvine (7-4).
The deluge began on the very first possession, when redshirt senior attacker Rachel Fattal secured her first of two opening sprints, and only moments later freshman utility Bronte Halligan netted her fourth goal of the season.
The Bruins would score three more times – twice from redshirt senior defender Alys Williams and once from freshman attacker Maddie Musselman – and go up 4-0 before Irvine called a timeout halfway through the first quarter.
After the break, Irvine dropped off the perimeter players and doubled up UCLA’s centers, including redshirt senior center Alexa Tielmann. It worked for one possession, but the Bruins quickly adjusted.
“It didn’t take long for us to adjust,” said coach Brandon Brooks. “Our group’s pretty experienced, they’re able to sort it out in the water well. They do a good job communicating with each other.”
Sophomore attacker Lizette Rozeboom snuck her first of three goals past Irvine goalie Riley Shaw soon after the defensive shift, and from there, the Bruins would score 11 more.
“(The drop) just opens up an outside shooter,” Tielmann said. “With our starting lineup that we played, I don’t think they should drop off any of us because we’re all good shooters. Either way, I think they’re kind of in a rut.”
Rozeboom was one of three UCLA players to score a hat trick or more. Williams notched her third goal less than a minute into the second quarter, and Musselman scored a team-high four goals, her team-leading 23rd a bar-in, cross-cage laser she stepped out and shot while under pressure from more than five meters out.
She also finished with three steals and an assist, while Kapana and the UCLA defense shored up the back half of the tank.
The sophomore recorded 13 saves in cage, and with the help of some field blocks, gave the Bruins a perfect showing on man-down defense – eight UCLA exclusions and no Irvine goals.
The one goal the Anteaters did manage came on a counterattack in the third quarter. A lob attempt glanced off the goal, and floated near the goal line before Irvine’s Mary Brooks pushed it in, only a stroke ahead of the retreating Kapana.
The same situation nearly happened again in the closing minutes of the fourth, but Kapana, seeing the overshot pass to a streaking opponent in the middle of the pool, charged out of cage and stole the ball near the five-meter line.
“Brandon (Brooks) always tells me to take risks, come out and steal the ball if you can,” Kapana said. “I just felt it in the moment, I saw that she overpassed it, so it was, I guess, just lucky for me.”
Brooks reasoned that the home opener was his second or third game this year where he’s been standing in the rain while his players are in the water or wrapped up in robes on the bench.
He doesn’t like rainy games, but said a little rain won’t get the Bruins down. It certainly didn’t Friday, even if was more than just a little.
