The hopes to secure the 2016 NCAA women’s water polo title were gone in a total of 32 minutes Saturday afternoon at Spieker Aquatics Center.
There were 52 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of UCLA’s NCAA semifinal game and the home team was looking at a three-goal deficit to Stanford.
The back-and-forth battle throughout the entire game pulled the hosts within striking range in that final minute, but the Bruins were never able to pull ahead of the Cardinal.
As the clock expired, No. 2 seed Stanford (22-5) completed its 7-4 win over No. 3 seed UCLA (25-4) to advance to the championship game and end the Bruins’ title run.
“First, I have to give praise to my girls for playing as hard as they could, they came with all their effort,” said coach Brandon Brooks. “At the same time, Stanford deserved that win. I don’t like saying it or admitting it, but my hat goes off to Stanford. They executed when they needed to and capitalized on opportunities, and that’s the way it goes.”
The Cardinal came out to a quick start in the opening minutes of the first quarter, finding the back of the net on their second possession of the match.
It wasn’t until four minutes into the first period when sophomore attacker Devin Grab put the Bruins on the board, tying the game at 1-1.
UCLA continued to answer Stanford’s attacking offense with its own, sending multiple shot attempts in hopes to sneak one past Cardinal goalkeeper Julia Hermann.
Hermann proved to be too difficult to get past for the Bruins.
“I don’t think we didn’t have opportunities, I think we had plenty of good opportunities,” Grab said. “The goalie had a great game and she did a really good job. I think shots were just not going in. That’s about it.”
The Stanford goalie had eight saves against the firing UCLA offense. Many of the Bruins’ shot attempts were just a skip to the right or left or glanced off the crossbar.
Four of the 28 shots taken found the back of the net giving UCLA a 14 percent shooting percentage.
“We just kept encouraging each other and kept telling each other to keep shooting,” Grab said. “Not getting down on ourselves, just moving on staying present in the game and knowing we needed to connect somewhere.”
Senior goalkeeper Alex Musselman had crucial saves against Stanford, keeping the deficit at one goal throughout much of the game. Musselman ended the day with four saves and the defense forced a .350 shooting percentage for the Cardinal.
Redshirt junior center Alexa Tielmann notched one goal in the second quarter for UCLA. Continuing to push the heavy Cardinal defense, junior utility Mackenzie Barr netted two big goals for the Bruins – two of which were on the 6-on-5 counter attack and cut Stanford’s constant two-goal lead to one.
“It’s always hard all the time,” Barr said. “Defense, offense – we fought as hard as we could and we weren’t good enough.”
The semifinal matchup was a repeat of last year’s NCAA final match, in which Stanford took the championship. The Cardinal will be returning to the NCAA final against the USC Trojans on Sunday evening. The Bruins will face the No. 4 seed Michigan Wolverines (29-6) in the consolation game.