Welcome to this week’s edition of USA Weekly, a bitesize re-cap of all the key points over the past seven days in collegiate play in the USA!
It was certainly quality over quantity this week, with high quality games few and far between. However, as you might have seen, there was a game to remember in Hawaii…
Late drama in Hawaii…
While it was generally a quiet week for women’s water polo on the mainland USA, there was an eruption of drama 2000km west in Honolulu.
Overtime was needed on two separate occasions to distinguish the fixtures between Hawaii and California, and Long Beach and California. Unfortunately for the Golden Bears, they were twice on the wrong end of late drama.
We can’t start anywhere else but a quite remarkable game between Hawaii and California. The game, although was a pretty interesting affair in normal time, with Cal and Hawaii tussling for the lead throughout 32 minutes, it was the last five seconds that kicked-off a spectacular chain of events. Brazilian attacker Bia Mantellato Dias rifled a shot from 10m off the crossbar and in to pull Hawaii level at 8-8, and take the game into extra-time.
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The drama didn’t end there though, as New Zealand’s keeper, Bridget Layburn made a brilliant save at one end, before launching the ball, on the buzzer, the length of the pool into an empty net, sending the Duke Kahanamoku crowd into a frenzy (9-8). Bia Mantellato Dias, and Alba Bonamusa Boix both found hat-tricks in the game for Wahine.
If that wasn’t hard enough for the Coralie Simmons’ Cal Bears, they then fell the day after to Long Beach, who sit six places below them in the rankings, once again to an overtime score (8-7). Dutch national, Anne De Kleer bagged a hat-trick in that one, with Spanish junior, Elisa Portillo, grabbing the eventual winner.
On the Thursday before, Hawaii held out again Long Beach, with four goals from Mantellato Dias spearheading the 9-7 win for Hawaii
MPSF Review (24th-26th March)
There were comfortable conference wins for the top-two ranked teams this past weekend.
USC grabbed a second MPSF win of the season, with an expected 16-4 win over Indiana, with big contributions from Team USA’s Bayley Weber (4 goals) and Paige Hauschild (3 goals).
Meanwhile, Stanford put Arizona State to the sword on Sunday, with an unstoppable eight-goal display from Aria Fischer guiding the Cardinal to a 19-6 win.
There are two games coming up this weekend in the MPSF, with two teams desperate for a conference win, Indiana and Arizona State facing off. USC will host San Jose.
MPSF Standings
- Stanford – 3 – 3 wins
- USC – 2 – 2
- UCLA – 2 – 1
- California – 2 – 1
- San Jose – 1 – 0
- Arizona State – 2 – 0
- Indiana – 4 – 0
Other action from this weekend…
UCLA, currently ranked 4th, took two wins from two at the Loyola Marymount Invitational this weekend, with a 15-11 win over the hosts LMU, and a deserved 9-3 over Princeton. USA national team centre-forward, Ava Johnson, found three scores against Princeton, with Bruins veteran Val Ayala bagging four in the clash with Loyola Marymount.
The Fresno State (7) continue to build momentum with a ninth-straight victory, with the Pacific Tigers (12) becoming their latest victims with a narrow 7-6 defeat to the Bulldogs in San Jose.
Other Conference Standings
Big West Conference
- Hawaii – 3 – 3 wins
- UC Irvine – 3 – 3
- UC Davis – 2 – 2
- Long Beach State – 4 – 3
- UC San Diego – 3 – 1
- UC Santa Barbara – 3 – 0
- CSUN – 3 – 0
- Cal State Fullerton – 3 – 0
Golden State Conference
- Fresno State – 5 – 5 wins
- LMU – 4 – 4
- Pacific – 4 – 2
- Concordia – 4 – 2
- San Diego State – 2 – 1
- Azusa Pacific – 4 – 1
- Cal Baptist – 3 – 0
- Santa Clara – 4 – 0
CWPA Conference Standings
- Michigan – 4 – 4 wins
- Princeton – 2 – 2
- Sant Francis – 4 – 2
- Havard – 2 – 1
- Brown – 2 – 0
- Bucknell – 4 – 0
This weekend’s top picks (CET)
Friday 31st March
21:00 – UC Davis vs UC Irvine
Saturday 1st April
22:00 – Indiana vs Arizona State
0:00 – USC vs San Jose
Sunday 2nd April
21:00 – UCLA vs Hawaii
22:00 – Pacific vs California
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