The UCLA women’s water polo team has not missed playing at home one bit.
The team swept its opponents this weekend at the UC Santa Barbara Winter Invitational, continuing with the same dominant performance it exhibited at the Michigan Kick-Off last weekend.
The Bruins started off with an 11-5 win against the Pacific Tigers on Saturday. Freshman attacker Rachel Fattal led the Bruins in scoring with two goals.
A few hours later, the team faced Concordia and looked as fresh as it had been in the first game, cruising to a 16-4 win over the Eagles.
Sunday was no different. The Bruins played host UC Santa Barbara early in the morning. The Gauchos did not trouble the Bruins, as they scored a 10-2 win. In the final match of the day, UCLA comfortably beat Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, 15-3.
With this weekend’s victories, the Bruins improved to 8-0 on the year.
An important part of the team’s hot start has been redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Sami Hill, who has recorded 64 saves so far playing in seven of the eight matches.
Sophomore Emily Donohoe has also gotten off to a strong start to the season for the Bruins. The sophomore led the team last week with 14 goals, one less than the total goals she registered all last season.
As a result of her performance, Donohoe was named Player of the Week by the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. This weekend, Donohoe added a goal in each Saturday game before chipping in one goal on Sunday.
Although the Bruins have looked flawless thus far, there have been some hurdles the team has had to overcome.
The main difficulty, as with every season, has been having to repeat a physically demanding weekend tournament schedule, but UCLA has not shown any signs of trouble so far.
Next weekend, the Bruins are going to face tougher opponents at the Stanford Invitational, but for now, the young team remains unbeaten.
Compiled by Susana Vasquez, Bruin Sports contributor.