This post was updated April 9 at 9:54 p.m.
UCLA women’s water polo won its last national championship 15 years ago.
For 15 years, Stanford and USC have traded titles as UCLA has fallen short of that elusive final victory.
The 2009 championship concluded a five-year run of dominance for the Bruins that featured five straight titles – including the school’s 100th national championship and two undefeated seasons.
Now, 15 years later, UCLA is undefeated 19 games into the season for the first time since 2008 and primed for a championship complete with an impressive group of underclassmen ready to lead the team to multiple titles.
Simply put, it’s time for the Bruins to go all the way.
Of the 11 freshmen that make up the class, six already have made names for themselves this season.
Goalkeeper Lauren Steele has stepped in to play the majority of the minutes in the net for the Bruins, complementing impressive defensive prowess with an offensive mind not often seen in a goalie.
Her 20 saves against UC Irvine – the most by any Bruin goalkeeper since 2010 – on Feb. 24 set a new freshman record. Her specialty is running the 7-on-6 – which teams usually have to trade in an offensive player for. Instead, coach Adam Wright is able to leave Steele in the pool in late-game situation. Her seven goals is more than any Bruin goalkeeper in at least two decades.
Utility Panni Szegedi is second on the team in scoring with 30 goals this season, and the Hungarian native has taken 28% of the sprints this season, winning at a 68.2% clip.
Four other freshmen are double-digit scorers this season – attacker Becca Melanson, center Dania Innis, utility Natasha Kieckhafer and utility Olivia Ouellette. Innis picked up five goals against Biola, while Melanson buried four over Cal State Fullerton.
And the once in a decade-and-a-half undefeated run to start this season has come without two of the team’s top scorers in 2023.
Both redshirt junior attacker Emma Lineback and sophomore utility Sienna Green are redshirting to train for the 2024 Olympics, leaving UCLA to replace 91 goals from the two – which it has been able to balance out across the athletes.
But the sophomore class hasn’t let its freshman counterparts take over the spotlight.
Utility Anna Pearson, the team’s scoring leader, attacker Taylor Smith and utility Lily Gess have combined for 27% of the team’s goals. The three of them have combined for eight hat tricks on the season.
The upperclassmen shouldn’t be forgotten, from attacker Malia Allen’s 6-goal performance against Stanford to the trio of graduate students who have returned for a final year of eligibility.
But the underclassmen have led the team in scoring outright in 11 of the Bruins’ 19 games this season. They have scored 67% of the team’s goals and make up 61% of the roster.
In short, they are the future.
The impressive young group has shown the ability to fight through adversity, coming from behind in wins over Hawaiʻi – where UCLA was down by five before embarking on a 12-1 run to end the game – and Stanford, for its largest margin of victory over the Cardinal in 26 years.
They are poised for a championship run, with all the makings of a team that should stay undefeated, even beyond this season. Anything else would be failing the clear talent they possess and missing out on the best opportunity they’ve had in over a decade.
The path won’t be easy.
It will likely require defeating the usual suspects of No. 4 Stanford and No. 3 USC at both the MPSF and NCAA tournaments.
The most improved team of the year has been No. 2 Hawaiʻi, who didn’t make the NCAA tournament the last two seasons, but only has three losses on the year – two of which are against UCLA.
And before all of that, UCLA will have to win its final two games of the season – contests on the road against top-five opponents No. 5 California and USC.
The path may be muddled, but the Bruins have the pieces to make this one a perfect season.
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