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No. 3 women’s water polo outlasts No. 1 Stanford for 10-9 upset win

With three goals in the third quarter, redshirt senior attacker Kodi Hill gave the Bruins a 9-7 advantage going into the fourth in No. 3 UCLA’s win over No. 1 Stanford. (Amy Dixon/Daily Bruin)

Women's water polo


No. 3 UCLA10
No. 1 Stanford9

By Michael Hull

April 15, 2017 8:27 p.m.

STANFORD — It was evident from the very first minutes Saturday afternoon – the Bruins meant business.

In No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo’s first three possessions, redshirt senior center Alexa Tielmann, redshirt senior defender Alys Williams and redshirt senior attacker Rachel Fattal each rattled off a goal to build a 3-0 lead over the No. 1 Stanford Cardinal.

UCLA would never trail, and an hour later, the No. 3 Bruins (19-1, 5-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) exited the pool having toppled the highest-ranked team in the country 10-9.

“This game’s been a long time coming,” said redshirt senior attacker Kodi Hill. “The years I’ve been here, we’ve lost to Stanford twice in the NCAA finals and then got third place, lost to them in the semifinals my freshman year. … So it’s a big deal for us to be able to come up with a win in that game, in this environment – it’s really hard to play in.”

By the end of the first quarter, the Cardinal (17-2, 4-1) had nearly completely made up the deficit. Stanford’s Jamie Neushul scored two, both off of UCLA exclusions, and Shannon Cleary added one to bring the first quarter to a 4-3 close.

The Cardinal’s Mackenzie Fischer evened the game up within the first minute and a half of the second quarter, however, and a long series of one-goal tradeoffs began.

Williams recorded her second of the game as UCLA converted its first man-up opportunity on its third advantage, only to be answered by Stanford’s Dani Jackovich. An outside score from freshman utility Bronte Halligan at the close of the second quarter was matched by the Cardinal’s Jordan Raney at the start of the third, and Hill’s first of the game was returned by a long-distance goal from Kat Klass that caught sophomore goalkeeper Carlee Kapana off-guard.

“We jump out to a 3-0 lead, and then they battle right back, and you expect a good team to do that,” said coach Brandon Brooks. “I think it says a lot about the team’s heart and fight. How we took that and kept working, I thought we did a really good job just kind of staying in the moment.”

Klass’ goal tied the game for the fourth time at 3:30 in the third quarter, and then, Hill took over.

Within just over a minute, she netted back-to-back goals into the top left corner, and gave the Bruins a 9-7 lead heading into the final frame.

“She found herself in the moment and was able to capitalize,” Brooks said. “We trust her, we have all the confidence in the world in her, she deserves it.”

It was the largest advantage of the game for the Bruins after the Cardinal had come back from the opening 3-0 deficit.

“We talk a lot about being patient on offense – Stanford likes to play really fast,” Hill said. “Our better shooters, we have Rachel (Fattal), we have Maddie (Musselman) in there, so naturally, I’m going to be left open, I’m the one they’re going to drop off of.”

Stanford and UCLA once again traded goals in the fourth quarter – Fischer’s goal at 6:07 was countered by freshman attacker Maddie Musselman’s second goal of the game with 5:33 to go, but the Bruin defense closed out the game from there on out.

The Cardinal only converted one of the two exclusions that it drew in the last four minutes, and the Bruins grabbed rebounds on offense to keep possession and burn much of the last two minutes.

The defense had been aggressive all-around throughout the game, but concerning Stanford’s Maggie Steffens – the captain of the 2016 U.S. Olympic team – it was lights-out.

Fattal and Musselman split duties on Steffens, who was averaging 2.61 goals per game heading into Saturday’s matchup – second in the MPSF – and held the Stanford captain to no goals.

“You can never take Maggie out of the game, Maggie can’t be taken out of the game,” Fattal said. “Even if she’s not scoring, she’s usually setting someone else up, and I think it was our job to make sure that we were holding her to just really limiting her role on that team.”

Brooks labeled that scoreless figure a misnomer as well, though at the end of the day, Steffens’ lack of production was one of the reasons that UCLA is the sole owner of first place in the MPSF. The Bruins will also likely be the No. 1 team in the country heading into the last week of regular season competition, which will determine seedings for the conference championship tournament.

That being said, Brooks doesn’t place too much importance on those.

“I feel like rankings don’t really matter,” Brooks said. “If I’m correct, ‘SC was the No. 1 team in the country, they lost to Stanford. Stanford was the No. 1 team in the country, now they lost to us. We really hope the cycle doesn’t continue.”

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Michael Hull | Alumnus
Hull joined the Bruin as a freshman in 2015 and contributed until 2017. He was an assistant Sports editor for the 2016-2017 academic year and spent time on the men's water polo, women's water polo, women's soccer, track and field and rowing beats.
Hull joined the Bruin as a freshman in 2015 and contributed until 2017. He was an assistant Sports editor for the 2016-2017 academic year and spent time on the men's water polo, women's water polo, women's soccer, track and field and rowing beats.
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