NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship

The NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship has existed since the 2001 season. Three conferences have teams competing in women's water polo, the Collegiate Water Polo Association, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Some teams compete at Division III either as members of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference or independently.

2011

The tournament will be held at the University of Michigan's Canham Natatorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan with automatic bids from the MPSF (Stanford), CWPA (Indiana), Big West (UCI), MAAC (Iona), WWPA (UCSD) and SCIAC (Redlands). The three-day championships on May 13-15, 2011, will also have 3 at-large teams.

Tournament First Round:

• No. 1 Stanford (25-1) vs. No. 8 Iona College/University of Redlands (play-in winner)
• No. 5 UCI (21-8) vs. No. 4 USC (18-6)
• No. 3 UCLA (24-6) vs. No. 6 Indiana (21-8)
• No. 7 UCSD (17-18) vs. No. 2 California (24-4)

Semi-finals:

• No. 2 California def. No. 3 UCLA 7–4
• No. 1 Stanford def. No. 4 Southern California 8–4

Championship:

• No. 1 Stanford defeated No. 2 California 9-5 for its second national title.

All Tournament First Team:

• Amber Oland, Stanford
• Annika Dries, Stanford
• Emily Csikos, Cal
• Kim Krueger, Stanford
• Patricia Jancso, USC
• Melissa Seidemann, Stanford
• Dana Ochsner, Cal
• Priscilla Orozco, UCLA

All Tournament Second Team:

• Stephane Peckham, Cal
• Jakie Kohli, Indiana
• Joelle Bekhazi, USC
• KK Clark, UCLA
• Cortney Collyer, UC Irvine
• Jessy Cardey, UC Irvine
• Maggie Wood, Iona
• Kelly Easterday, UCLA

Tournament MVP: Annika Dries, Stanford

2010

The tournament field was announced on Monday, May 3, 2010 with the Championship tournament scheduled for May 14-16 at San Diego State University's Aztec Aquaplex. Teams received automatic bids were: UCLA (MPSF), Michigan (CWPA), Marist (MAAC), Loyola Marymount (WWPA) and Pomona-Pitzer (SCIAC). Stanford, Cal and USC of MPSF received at-large bids.

Tournament Bracket:

• #1 Stanford (24-2) vs. #8 Pomona-Pitzer (18-14)
• #2 USC (22-3) vs. #7 Marist (18-14)
• #3 UCLA (20-7) vs. #6 Loyola Marymount (27-4)
• #4 Cal (24-8) vs. #5 Michigan (32-6)

Southern California (25-3) defeated Stanford in the title game 10-9 for its second national title in school history.

2009

The following conferences and institutions received automatic qualification for the 2009 Championships, which were played on May 8-10: Collegiate Water Polo Association, Michigan; Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Marist; Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, USC; Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Cal Lutheran; and Western Water Polo Association, Loyola Marymount. The following institutions received at-large bids to the championship field: Stanford, UCLA, and Hawai'i.

The first round games: #1 seed USC (24-1) vs. #8 Cal Lutheran (19-12); #2 Stanford (24-3) vs. #7 Marist (18-13); #3 UCLA (22-6) vs. #6 Michigan (33-8); and #4 Hawai'i (18-8) vs. # 5 Loyola Marymount (24-7).

The UCLA Bruins women's team (3rd seeded) battled the #1 rated USC Trojans for the national championship on Sunday, May 10, 2009 at College Park, Maryland. With two goals from Tanya Gandy in the first minute of the game, UCLA won a record fifth consecutive crown, 11th national title and 7th NCAA crown.^[1] Gandy earned the NCAA Tournament's most valuable player honor.

Championship winners

Division I

The University of California-Los Angeles Bruins are honored at the White House by President of the United States George W. Bush in June 2008 for their winning the 2008 Division I national championship. The Bruins own seven of the ten Division I titles ever awarded.

^[1][2]

Tournament notes

No school from outside the state of California has ever surpassed fourth place. Hence, no non-California school has ever participated in the NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship game, nor has a non-California school ever won the consolation game. In fact, with the exception of Stanford University and Cal (both in the northern part of the state), all of the schools who have achieved first, second, or third place have been located in Los Angeles, California. Prior to NCAA tournament competition, USA Water Polo conducted an intercollegiate team championship from 1984-2000. In 1995, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania became the only non-California school to win the intercollegiate women's water polo championship.

The women's water polo team from UCLA has won 7 of the 11 championships, and won the 100th and 101st NCAA Championship for the school in 2007 and 2008 respectively.^[3][4]

See also

• Pre-NCAA Intercollegiate Women's Water Polo Champions

References

External links

• Women's Water Polo Championship History - NCAA.com
• National Women's Collegiate Champs

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