UCLA weekend recap: Women’s water polo wins MPSF tournament

The UCLA women’s water polo team won the MPSF championship with a 6-3 victory over Stanford on Sunday. (Photo by Don Liebig/UCLA photography)

The UCLA women’s water polo team pitched a second-half shutout against Stanford in Sunday’s MPSF tournament final to win the conference title with a 6-3 victory on Sunday.

The Bruins, who earned the No. 1 seed in the tournament with their first-place regular season finish, won their 11th MPSF title, led by Rachel Fattal‘s three goals.

UCLA (21-1) recorded 13 saves while dooming Stanford to its lowest-scoring game of the year. Bruin goalkeeper Carlee Kapana had six saves, four of which came in the fourth quarter.

Elsewhere in UCLA athletics:

  • Softball won its eighth straight game while sweeping its second straight Pac-12 series as the Bruins got three road wins against Stanford this past weekend. Madeline Jelenicki and Delaney Spaulding led UCLA (36-12, 10-7 Pac-12) with seven combined RBIs each this weekend. Jelenicki’s five RBIs paced the Bruins to a 13-8 win on Friday. Spaulding drove home three runs in a 6-5 win Saturday while Selina Ta’amilo pitched a complete game. UCLA won 8-1 to complete the sweep Sunday.
  • Scott Burke‘s third save of the year secured baseball‘s series win over Cal Poly on Sunday. Burke pitched 1 2/3 shutout innings in relief as the Bruins (21-19) held off Cal Poly 5-4. UCLA won the series opener Friday 2-1 before falling 6-3 on Saturday.
  • Track and field split its annual dual meet against USC on Sunday as the men’s team won 88-75 while the women’s team lost 86-77. UCLA sprinter Leon Powell won the 100-meter with a time of 10.26 seconds that snapped a 14-year USC winning streak in the event. The Bruins also swept the men’s 1,500-meter, 3,000-meter steeplechase and 5,000-meter races.
  • Beach volleyball ended USC’s 62-dual-match winning streak, but lost to the Trojans in the championship match of the double-elimination Pac-12 tournament on Friday. The Bruins (29-4) earned the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which starts Friday, when they will face LSU.
  • Playing through several snow delays at the Boulder Country Club, men’s golf finished fifth in the Pac-12 championships with a 38-over 1088. Oregon won the conference title with a 15-over 1065.
  • Men’s tennis lost a 4-3 thriller to third-seeded USC in the championship match of the Pac-12 men’s tennis tournament on Saturday. The Trojans clinched the win with a three-set victory on court No. 1 as Brandon Holt defeated Gage Brymer 7-5, 3-6, 6-4. UCLA was seeded first after winning the Pac-12’s regular season crown.
  • In the first-ever Pac-12 women’s tennis team championship, No. 5 Oregon upset No. 4 UCLA in the quarterfinals 4-3 on Thursday. The Bruins lost the doubles point for first time in 12 matches as Oregon took an early lead. Then, five of the six singles matches went to three sets with UCLA winning only two. UCLA’s Jada Hart won the only straight set match with a 6-2, 7-6 (6) victory at No. 3 singles. In previous years, the Pac-12 women’s tennis tournament only determined the conference’s singles and doubles champions, but this year was the first time in the 117-year history of the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament that both the men’s and women’s Pac-12 tournaments named the conference’s automatic NCAA tournament qualifier.
  • Rowing won one of three races against No. 13 USC on Sunday, getting a victory in the second varsity eight by more than eight seconds. The Trojans won the varsity eight by less than two seconds and the varsity four by nearly 11 seconds.