2009 was supposed to be the year that the UCLA women’s water polo team’s run of consecutive national championships would come to an end.
But what was supposed to be never happened.
Under the leadership of coach Adam Krikorian, the Bruins entered the season having won the last four national championships. However, the team would have to account for the graduation of the most successful class in program history, a group that went a perfect 4-for-4 in title runs.
In addition, USC and Stanford had emerged as clear front-runners in the preseason rankings, with UCLA sitting behind both at a distant third.
“At the beginning of the year I didn’t think we would be good enough,” senior attacker Tanya Gandy said. “I didn’t think I would be good enough to lead.”
The leadership of Gandy and fellow seniors Anne Belden, Katie Rulon and Brittany Fullen would be key as the Bruins fielded a team of eight freshmen, 10 sophomores and no juniors.
The regular season unfolded just as the preseason rankings predicted.
After a February hiccup against Hawaii that ended UCLA’s 46-match winning streak, the Bruins lost just five times the rest of the way, with three of those losses coming at the hands of Stanford and two coming against USC.
Consequently, the Bruins entered the NCAA Tournament fresh off a third-place finish in both the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation regular season and the MPSF playoffs.
After knocking off then No. 6 Michigan in the first round, the magic really started to happen, and it became apparent that the Bruins would have to go through Stanford and USC to win a fifth consecutive title.
“I told them now was our time,” Krikorian said. “We’d been building all year for this, and the things we tried to stress were to play with energy, enthusiasm and confidence.”
As expected, the semifinal game against Stanford was a back-and-forth thriller. But in the end, UCLA sophomore defender Megan Burmeister netted a goal as time expired to give the Bruins a 12-11 victory and propel them into the national championship against USC.
The showdown with the Trojans turned out to be a defensive struggle for the ages, with the Bruins building a 5-3 halftime lead behind a pair of penalty shots converted by Gandy. In the second half, UCLA failed to score, but Fullen and the defense tightened up, holding USC to just one goal of their own and pulling off the 5-4 upset to lift the Bruins to another title, and the most improbable one yet.
For Gandy, Fullen, Rulon and Belden, the win stood as their fourth title in as many years, capping a perfect career for them in terms of national championships, They were the second consecutive graduating class to accomplish that feat.
“Every year is different,” Gandy said in the aftermath of the victory. “This year has probably been the sweetest of all the others I’ve won, just because no one thought we were a contender.”
The run to a championship had become more emotional a little over a month prior, when Krikorian announced that he would be leaving the program after the season to take over the USA women’s national program.
This was the year that the women overcame the loss of the most successful class in program history, the year the next generation of senior leaders stepped up to guide the way, the year a storied program sent its coach off with one more title.