Though the largest water polo stage in the world was months after the conclusion of the NCAA women’s water polo season last year, the Rio Olympics still took its toll.
Top players from around the country passed on collegiate competition in hopes of making it onto the United States national team and playing at the next level.
Now, all those players are coming back, and a reminted UCLA women’s water polo team enters its season with not only nearly all of its 2016 team returning but also top talent from two years ago.
“The level of play has gone way up,” said coach Brandon Brooks. “Last year, you had a lot of people that were missing big parts of their teams, and this year you have them all back, and they’re all for the most part a year better and a year older.”
For UCLA, those people are redshirt seniors Rachel Fattal, Alys Williams and Kodi Hill. The three were first, third and fifth, respectively, in goals scored for the Bruins two years ago.
Out of the three, Fattal was the only one to compete in Rio with Team USA last summer. The gold medalist was one of the United States’ top sprinters and tallied four goals, but she’s not the only Bruin to bring back hardware.
[Related: Rio Recap: Aug. 19]
Freshman attacker Maddie Musselman, who scored 12 goals in Brazil and was named to the Olympic All-Tournament team, will make her UCLA debut this weekend.
“I’ve played with a lot of these girls in the past on different teams, but I think the opportunity to be all on the same team at once, we’re going to be very deadly,” Musselman said.
Besides the Olympic talent coming to Westwood, UCLA also returns all but three of the members on the 2016 team that finished third in the NCAAs last year.
The Bruins lost senior leadership in the field from Charlotte Pratt and India Forster and in the cage from veteran goalie Alex Musselman, who led the team with 151 saves, but returns six of their top seven scorers from the 2016 season, including Peter J. Cutino Award finalist Mackenzie Barr.
And those scoring leaders, along with the rest of the team, are now more diversified thanks to the 2016 season, according to Brooks.
[Related: Women’s water polo duo documents mouth-watering adventures]
“The thing about last year was that you had a lot of people thrust into roles that they hadn’t really been in and put under pressures that they hadn’t really been in,” Brooks said. “Ultimately that had its bumps last year, but it’s paying dividends now.”
Maddie Musselman said it’s going to be fun to play top teams from other colleges with a group as talented as this one, and UCLA will get an early look at some of those top teams as soon as Saturday.
The Bruins have a scrimmage set against California on Saturday and another against Stanford on Sunday, which the freshman and Fattal are looking forward to.
“We’ve been scrimmaging each other in practice, but we haven’t really had a full-blown game yet,” Fattal said. “Even exhibition games against good teams are really going to show us what we need to work on and what our strengths are and how we can improve throughout the season.”