BERKELEY, Calif. \u2013 The third-seeded UCLA women’s water polo team was triumphant in the MPSF Championship Tournament third-place game Sunday, outlasting No. 4 seed and host California 10-9 at Spieker Aquatics Complex. UCLA jumped out to a 4-1 lead after the first quarter, but the teams were never separated by more than two goals from that point on.<\/p>\n
Both teams now await announcement of at-large selections for the 2026 National Collegiate Women’s Water Polo Championship, hosted by UC San Diego at Canyonview Pool in La Jolla, Calif. from April 22-26. The 10-team field will be revealed Monday during the selection show, broadcast on NCAA.com at 5 p.m. PT.<\/p>\n
Elektra Urbatsch<\/a> posted her third hat trick in as many days to lead the Bruins (20-4). Bia Mantellato<\/a>, Taylor Smith<\/a> and Tali Stryker<\/a> had two goals each for UCLA. Bruin goalkeeper Lauren Steele<\/a> logged 13 saves and finished with 41 for the tournament. Cal (14-7) was paced by Maria Bogachenko’s three goals and Talia Fonseca’s seven saves.<\/p>\n Cal scored first on a power play, but Urbatsch quickly answered with a six-on-five conversion of her own. Stryker found the back of the net on back-to-back possessions and Urbatsch added a last-second strike to put UCLA up by three.<\/p>\n The Golden Bears charged back with three consecutive goals to start the second quarter. Mantellato moved the Bruins back in front with a power-play goal at 1:38, but Cal answered once more to make the halftime score 5-5.<\/p>\n Abbi Magee gave the Golden Bears their first lead, capitalizing on a six-on-five chance with 7:33 left in the third. It was all UCLA the rest of the frame, however, with Taylor Smith<\/a> (5:51), Urbatsch (3:21) and Mantellato (0:45 \u2013 power play) helping the Bruins back to an 8-6 lead with eight minutes remaining.<\/p>\n Cal regained momentum early in the fourth, as Bogachenko (7:25) and Julia Bonaguidi (5:41) scored consecutively. Emma Lineback<\/a> (2:35) and Taylor Smith<\/a> (1:35) responded for UCLA, though, establishing a cushion. Magee’s made penalty shot cut the Golden Bears’ deficit in half once more, but the Bruin defense withstood one final push. Mantellato made a game-winning steal to seal the result.<\/p>\n No. 3 seed UCLA vs. No. 4 seed California
\n6×5: UCLA \u2013 4\/13, California \u2013 4\/13 UCLA Goals: Elektra Urbatsch<\/a> 3, Bia Mantellato<\/a> 2, Taylor Smith<\/a> 2, Tali Stryker<\/a> 2, Emma Lineback<\/a> 1 California Goals: Maria Bogachenko 3, Abbi Magee 2, Julia Bonaguidi 1, Rosalie Hassett 1, Harper Price 1, Eszter Varro 1
\n
\n<\/p>\n
\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tSCOREBOARD
\n\t\t\t1
\n\t\t\t2
\n\t\t\t3
\n\t\t\t4
\n\t\t\tFINAL
\n\t\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tNo. 3 UCLA\u00a0
\n\t\t\t4
\n\t\t\t1
\n\t\t\t3
\n\t\t\t2
\n\t\t\t10
\n\t\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tNo. 4 California
\n\t\t\t1
\n\t\t\t4
\n\t\t\t1
\n\t\t\t3
\n\t\t\t9
\n\t\t
\n\t
<\/p>\n
\nPenalties: UCLA \u2013 0\/0, California \u2013 1\/1<\/p>\n
\nUCLA Saves: Lauren Steele<\/a> 13<\/p>\n
\nCalifornia Saves: Talia Fonseca 7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKELEY, Calif. \u2013 The third-seeded UCLA women’s water polo team was triumphant in the MPSF Championship Tournament third-place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-389189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}