This post was updated Jan. 29 at 12:11 p.m.

The Bruins had career-high games from four players en route to picking up the win over the Aggies.

No. 2 UCLA women’s water polo (4-0) defeated No. 14 UC Davis (0-5) in an 18-10 victory at the California Cup on Saturday. Of the four Bruins to tally career-highs in goals, two were freshmen, while the quartet combined for 14 of UCLA’s total.

Freshman utility Panni Szegedi started things off for the Bruins early, scoring the first two goals of her eventual hat trick to open the match.

Sophomore utility Anna Pearson scored the next two Bruin goals in the first quarter. She went on to score three more on the day, tying her career high with five. She said her performance was motivated by her teammates.

“Seeing my teammate Panni just score two really quick goals, it got me fired up and kind of inspired me to just keep shooting,” Pearson said.

Freshman attacker Becca Melanson – who earned her first career hat trick – said winning each of the four sprints, three of which were won by Szegedi, helped contribute to the team’s momentum.

“It would definitely set the tone because we would just sprint to offense,” Melanson said. “One time, we even scored right off of that swim off, so it got us a goal and it just set the tone for the rest of the quarter.”

The Bruins’ offensive performance continued into the second quarter, where UCLA outscored Davis six to two, resulting in an 11-3 score at halftime.

The defense also played a key role for the Bruins, with freshman goalkeeper Lauren Steele garnering nine saves in the net. Coach Adam Wright said Steele’s contributions played a major role in the team’s success.

“Lauren, in the goal, she does a really good job,” Wright said. “When we’re not even taking our blocks, she’s able to make up a lot of ground for us.”

The Bruins’ momentum appeared to falter in the third quarter, where Davis scored four goals to UCLA’s two, making it the only quarter in which the Aggies outscored the Bruins. Wright said this could have been due to substitution and rotational factors.

“We are subbing and making a lot of different rotations … but it’s a work in progress,” Wright said. “We’re just trying to start searching for the best lines that we can put together.”

Despite the push from the Aggies, the Bruins held on to the lead. Melanson and sophomore utility Genoa Rossi, who earned her first career hat trick, showed to be consistent factors on the team as they each scored a goal in three of the four quarters of the game. Melanson said her goals were a result of Wright’s coaching.

“All three of my goals were the same in a sense in terms that I stepped in and attacked the goal and that was something that we continuously talked about,” Melanson said. “By me demonstrating what Adam, our coach, wanted, it turned out in our favor.”

UCLA reverted to their first-half scoring patterns in the fourth quarter with five goals, cementing their 18-10 win over Davis.

The Bruins also scheduled three exhibition matches for the weekend, playing No. 7 Stanford on Saturday and No. 3 California and the USA Youth National Team on Sunday. However, scores were not posted for any of those games.