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Bruins bounce back against Bears, defeat them in first conference game of season

Freshman attacker Bella Baia finished with a goal in the first quarter to give No. 4 UCLA women’s water polo an early lead. The Bruins defeated No. 3 California 9-7 on Sunday afternoon in their first conference game of the season. (Alice Naland/Daily Bruin)

By Marcus Veal

March 4, 2019 12:41 a.m.

The Bruins snapped their two-game losing skid.

No. 4 UCLA women’s water polo (17-3, 1-0 MPSF) opened conference play with a 9-7 win over No. 3 California (10-3, 0-1).

Last week, the Bruins and Golden Bears squared off at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational. Cal got the 7-6 win in overtime to take third place in the tournament.

“We have a choice of how we want to react when teams do certain things, and that’s been a little bit of a problem over the course of the season,” said coach Adam Wright. “There are times where we let teams dictate how we go about playing.”

In that game, the Bears busted out to a 4-0 lead to start the game, but on Sunday, the Bruins returned the favor.

On the first possession of the game for UCLA, sophomore attacker Lexi Liebowitz found an opening on the inside to freshman center Ava Johnson, who put away the first goal of the game.

The Bruins jumped out to a 2-0 lead before the end of the opening frame when freshman attacker Bella Baia went with the off-speed shot to float it just past the reach of Cal goalkeeper Madison Tagg.

“I think our balance, our attack and our structure was much better (on Sunday),” Wright said. “You were seeing us finishing on one end and covering on the other and not giving up easy goals, so that was a huge positive what the girls did this week and how they trained this week.”

UCLA extended its lead to five goals with redshirt senior attacker Grace Reego and senior defenders Kelsey Blacker and Rachel Whitelegge each picking up goals in the second quarter.

“I think our energy was pretty low at the start of the first game against Cal, so we just looked to stay composed and have a balanced energy the entire game (on Sunday),” said junior attacker Bronte Halligan. “We tried to not go on an emotional roller coaster like we’ve done in the past and we just tried to stay focused, and we really did a good job doing that.”

UCLA shut out Cal for more than 11 minutes of action before center Kitty Lynn Joustra scored from 2 meters out to get the Bears on the board.

A long outlet pass from senior goalkeeper Carlee Kapana to the front court led to a penalty shot and a chance to regain the five goal lead for the Bruins. Halligan took the shot and aimed bottom-left, but was stopped by Tagg to keep the lead at 5-1 going into the half.

In the second half, Cal outscored UCLA 6-4 and pulled within one goal four different times.

The Bears took back control in the third frame, scoring three unanswered goals to make it a 5-4 game. Out of a timeout, junior attacker Maddie Musselman struck the back of the net from the perimeter for her first goal of the match in the final minute of the quarter.

The Bears pulled within one three more times in the fourth, but the Bruins countered with goals of their own to avoid losing the lead.

In the final minute, freshman attacker Val Ayala put in the last goal of the game on a power-play opportunity assisted by Halligan to secure a UCLA win in its conference opener.

“This game was a lot of what we expected,” Baia said. “We studied a lot of film this week and a lot of it was what we saw last week. We wanted to start with a lot of energy and a lot of player movement because we knew that it would help us later on in the game and it did.”

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Marcus Veal | Alumnus
Veal joined the Bruin as a freshman in 2016 and contributed until he graduated in 2020. He spent time on the baseball, softball, women's water polo, men's soccer and cross country beats.
Veal joined the Bruin as a freshman in 2016 and contributed until he graduated in 2020. He spent time on the baseball, softball, women's water polo, men's soccer and cross country beats.
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