Title washed away

EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Freshman center
Amber Stachowski battled for the hole-set position
during UCLA’s 8-4 loss to Stanford Sunday in the NCAA Championship
game.

By Susana Zialcita
Daily Bruin [email protected]

Let’s be frank: you can’t win a NCAA women’s
water polo championship if you can’t score on Stanford goal
keeper Jackie Frank.

The Cardinal defense stifled the UCLA Bruins in an 8-4 loss in
the NCAA title game and the credit goes to the junior goalie. Frank
stopped 12 of UCLA’s 16 shots.

“Stanford has some outstanding players but Jackie makes
their team,” UCLA head coach Adam Krikorian said, “She
proved that today, and she was key to Stanford’s
success.”

Stanford won its first ever national championship, taking away
what would have been the Bruins’ sixth national championship
in seven years.

The Bruins put on happy faces and hugged on the deck after the
game, having the proud accomplishments of a 22-4 season record and
a second place finish in the NCAA.

Still, the competitive spirit that brought the team this far
showed in the disappointment behind the smiles.

“We don’t always have to win every game to be good
competitors,” sophomore Natalie Golda said.

EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Thalia
Munro ponders at what could’ve been on the edge of the
pool while Stanford players celebrate their victory over UCLA in
the NCAA title game.

The dissatisfaction in her face nearly eclipsed the words she
spoke. As she barely managed to fight back tears, Golda added,
“We lost and its not a big deal, we all played like
champs.”

The Bruins came into the championship match after drowning
Loyola Marymount Saturday in the semifinal game 11-2. Stanford went
in with a similar semifinal experience, beating Michigan 13-3.

The Cardinal were the ones able to maintain the momentum in the
title game, as they immediately jumped ahead of the Bruins, scoring
41 seconds into the first quarter and twice more shortly after.
UCLA could not score in the first quarter, as it had trouble with
Stanford’s press-defense at the top of the pool and forced
passes into the center. The Cardinal effectively collapsed on
UCLA’s center, Kelly Heuchan, and Frank blocked three of the
Bruins’ outside shots.

“Both teams came out fired up,” junior Robin
Beauregard said. “But it’s a round ball. Sometimes it
bounces in and sometimes it bounces out. Their first three shots
went in and ours didn’t.”

The Bruins only put a dent in the Stanford lead in the second
quarter with a goal by Golda, which brought the score to 4-1 at the
end of the quarter.

In the pivotal third quarter, Frank saved five of UCLA’s
shots. But Golda earned another goal for UCLA with an unstoppable
shot to the corner.

The Bruins nearly closed the gap to 4-3 off a shot from
Beauregard but the ball sat on the goal line and never crossed it.
Stanford immediately converted the counter attack into another
goal. The Cardinal held its 5-2 lead after three quarters and never
looked back.

Despite aggressive defensive steals by Thalia Munro and Jessica
Lopez, Stanford outscored the Bruins in the last quarter 3-2. Golda
put in a four-meter penalty and Heuchan scored the Bruins’
final goal as Stanford dethroned last year’s NCAA champs by
four goals.

“They were just four goals better than us this
game,” Beauregard said.

“This was the best way for us to finish our season,”
said Stanford senior Margie Dingeldein. “We’ve always
felt that in past years we’ve had the best team but never
came out on top.”

Instead of experiencing the déja vu of a repeat NCAA
championship, Krikorian felt something more on the side of a
recurring nightmare. Krikorian also coaches the men’s water
polo team and last fall, he saw the Cardinal come out on top in the
NCAA men’s championship.

“This tournament has a different feeling,” Krikorian
said. “After the men’s game, we had that empty feeling
because we knew we didn’t put out our best effort.”

“Now, I don’t have that empty feeling at all,”
Krikorian added. “I feel happy and I am proud of this
game.”