Women's Water Polo: Tigers place 5th at NCAAs after loss to UCLA

Making its second-ever NCAA championship appearance for the second consecutive year, the sixth-seeded women's water polo team went 2-1 at the national championships this past weekend in Boston to finish fifth out of eight teams playing in the tournament. After falling short to third-seeded UCLA in the opening round, the Tigers (28-6 overall, 5-0 CWPA) bounced back over the next two days to beat Iona and University of California, San Diego.

With experience under their belt, the Tigers' tournament run this year went much differently than last year's, when Princeton suffered a double-digit loss to USC in the opening round en route to a sixth-place finish. Facing an equally-tough opponent in UCLA (24-4, 3-2 MPSF) in its first game this year, Princeton held its own and was only narrowly defeated 8-6 in a very defensive match.

Led by freshman goalie Ashleigh Johnson's nine saves, the Tigers were able to limit the Bruins' potent offense for much of the game. However, a slow offensive start made a fourth-quarter comeback too much of a stretch for Princeton to pull out a win. At halftime, the Tigers trailed 6-2 and then found themselves down 7-2 in the early minutes of the fourth quarter. Princeton would finally find its offensive momentum when junior utility Katie Rigler netted back-to-back goals to bring the score to within three points.

However, UCLA would counter with a goal of its own to put the game out of reach, even though Princeton would score two more goals before the end of the period.

"I'm really excited about the way our [team] played; unfortunately we had some chances in that second quarter and we had some turnovers that [UCLA] capitalized on to score some quick goals," head coach Luis Nicolao said at a press conference after the game. "Other than that, I thought we played really well, fought hard and fell a little short, unfortunately."

Despite the loss, the Tigers didn't let emotions get the best of them and came out with a dominating performance the next day against Iona (21-11, 10-2 MAAC). The Tigers' offense picked up from where they left off to score 12 goals while the defense continued to remain strong, holding the Gaels scoreless in two periods and only giving up two goals in total. Senior center Saranna Soroka had a breakout game with four goals to lead the offense, while Johnson led the defense with four steals and 15 saves.

"It was great to come back this afternoon after last night's tough loss," Nicolao said at the postgame press conference. "We were worried about a little letdown after last night, but I was just happy to see us come out from the get-go and play great team defense, and from there we were able to get some shots."

Last year, Princeton also defeated Iona in the consolation match, but was defeated by Loyola Marymount in the fifth-place game. This year was a different story — the Tigers came out with a win, but needed a double-overtime effort in order to beat UC San Diego by a score of 12-10. After trading goals throughout the game, the Tritons (26-15, 7-0 WWPA) entered the fourth quarter with an 8-7 advantage. Princeton was unable to find an offensive rhythm in the early minutes as the Tigers could not get the ball inside the two meters. Meanwhile, the Tritons took advantage of ejections to score two more goals to extend their lead to three with 5:39 remaining in regulation.

UC San Diego had all of the momentum, but the Tigers still had a comeback in them as senior attack Brittany Zwirner and freshman utility Pippa Temple scored a goal apiece to bring the game within one. Sophomore utility Camilie Hooks came up with a big steal on the defensive end, setting up another Zwirner goal to tie the game at 10 with just over two minutes to play. Princeton had several ensuing opportunities to break the tie, but each either hit the crossbar or was deflected. The game went into overtime, where sophomore utility Jessie Holechek scored two long-range goals to give the Tigers a win and a fifth place finish in the tournament. Holechek led the Tigers in the game with four goals, while Johnson had 14 saves to bring her tournament tally to 38 — a new NCAA tournament saves record. The Tigers were able to pull off the victory even without contributions from Rigler, who was playing with the flu.

"I am really proud of how we played all weekend," Zwirner said in a press conference after the fifth-place game. "We have been talking about each year getting better, and last year we finished sixth and this year we finished fifth. Again, it's one step better, and I am so happy with the team and how we did."