UCLA women’s water polo triumphs at Triton Invitational, defends tournament title

The Bruins are back-to-back Triton Invitational champions.

No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo (15-0, 2-0 MPSF) captured four wins over the weekend at Canyonview Aquatic Center in San Diego during its first bracketed tournament of the season, dismantling Santa Clara (1-5) on Saturday 20-1 before outlasting No. 12 UC San Diego (6-4) later that evening 13-6. The blue and gold defeated No. 5 Michigan (7-5) on Sunday 7-6 and upset No. 1 USC (7-1) in the evening slate 11-10.

With tournament formats abandoned during the 2021 COVID-19 pandemic season, the Bruins repeated as Triton Invitational champions after the Trojans claimed the title in each of the previous seven years prior to 2020.

Junior utility Abbi Hill – UCLA’s goal leader in the 2020 Triton Invitational finals – joined redshirt senior attacker Maddie Musselman in posting a hat trick to combine for over half of the team’s points in the win against USC on Sunday.

“I remember when we beat USC in the finals my freshman year, it was awesome,” Hill said. “This was no different. Winning a tournament is great, especially for the team just to get some confidence and get some bigger games under our belt.”

The Bruins had never trailed in a game before the tournament. However, UCLA managed one goal in the first half against tournament host UCSD, trailing 3-1 by midgame. Ten different Bruins would score as part of a 12-3 run in the contest’s final 16 minutes.

Hill said coach Adam Wright’s halftime speech helped the group refocus and capitalize on finishing opportunities.

“Adam definitely had a stern talking to us, which is something that we needed to hear,” Hill said. “We were not doing what we needed to do and we needed to get ourselves out of it, because the only people who could change was us.”

UCLA fell behind 3-1 again the following morning against Michigan. Despite posting a second-quarter shutout, the Bruins trailed at halftime for the second consecutive game.

Musselman tied the contest at three apiece in the third quarter before freshman attacker Emma Lineback netted a power-play opportunity to give the blue and gold its first advantage of the game.

With each team notching three goals in the fourth quarter, the Bruins finished 5-of-11 in six-on-five situations, accounting for over half the team’s goals in the game.

Musselman, named UCLA’s Student-Athlete of the Week for her performance in the tournament, said the contests versus the Tritons and Wolverines served as an important learning experience for the program.

“It doesn’t matter the score, you can turn it around and that’s a choice you have to make,” Musselman said. “Getting new experience, having those freshmen out there, having players that have been around for a long time and just creating those connections now is going to help us in the future.”

Redshirt junior goalkeeper Georgia Phillips finished second in the invitational in saves and saves per game, averaging 8.8 over the four contests. Phillips only played the first quarter against Santa Clara after registering two saves en route to a 9-0 lead as sophomore goalkeeper Sydney Chiang hauled in a career-high 10 saves in the final three quarters.

Musselman, emphasizing treating every game and opponent the same, said the team’s culture – having no team captains – makes for an enjoyable environment unique to UCLA.

“Our culture gives us something to fall back on when things are getting tough or there’s adversity ahead,” Musselman said. “To have the values, or these things that we talk about on a daily basis, like the way that we approach everything makes a huge difference. I’m really excited to see this specific team grasp onto that. We realize that we can beat anyone with anyone.”

UCLA will now have a bye week before heading south to Irvine for the Barbara Kalbus Invitational, the final tournament of the regular season.

Wright said his team has a lot of room to grow over the next two weeks and the bye will allow the Bruins to physically recover, fix recurring issues and implement new tactics.

“We’ve been on the go for the last five weeks, so it’s nice that the players can recover a little bit,” Wright said.