Water Polo News is courtesy of Stanford Athletics.
Stanford felt right at home, allowing the national championship to stay on The Farm.
Backed by a raucous crowd at Avery Aquatic Center, Stanford became the first host school to win an NCAA championship while defending its title with a 7-6 victory over UCLA on Sunday evening.
Kiley Neushul converted a penalty shot for the game-winner with 11 seconds remaining, as Stanford (25-2) captured its fourth NCAA crown in five years and fifth in school history. The NCAA title is also the 106th won by a Stanford team and extends the school’s national-best streak of years with at least one NCAA championship to 39, dating back to 1976-77.
“I’m incredibly proud of this team and the effort they put in,” Stanford head coach John Tanner said. “They have been sensational throughout the year to put themselves in this position and they have responded every time. The fourth quarter was a crazy adventure and it felt like each time we would try to establish something in the front court we’d get an offensive foul and have to really work our way through the defense. We were 5-on-6 a lot and just holding even took a huge amount of energy. Today showed tons of perseverance and a lot of character.”
The frantic final seconds began with a Gabby Stone save on a skip shot from Alys Williams with 40 seconds to go and the game tied, 6-6. UCLA’s Emily Donohoe was whistled for an exclusion on the way down and the Cardinal called timeout with 34 ticks left in the game and 32 on the shot clock to set up its final play.
Stanford cycled it around the perimeter, probing the defense until Jordan Raney up top passed to Maggie Steffens on her left with 14 seconds remaining. Steffens fired a shot low which was saved by the Bruins’ Sami Hill. UCLA quickly attempted to stop the action and use a timeout, but not before Hill was pressured by the Cardinal’s Ashley Grossman and forced to dump the ball into open water on her right.
Without possession of the ball, the Bruins were whistled for an illegal timeout and a five-meter penalty was awarded to Stanford. UCLA’s head coach Brandon Brooks pleaded his case with the officials, who conferred and confirmed the call. That’s when Neushul calmly swam to the center of the pool with an NCAA title in the balance and beat Hill with a skip to the keeper’s left.
The score capped a memorable finale for Stanford’s senior class. Neushul scored a season-high five goals, while fellow senior Ashley Grossman added a pair. Over the past four season, Neushul, Grossman and senior goalkeeper Emily Dorst went 105-8 and won three national championships.
“You get kind of hot during a game and you look at your teammates, they look at you and are like, ‘You got it, you got it,’” Neushul said when asked if there was any debate as to who would take the penalty. “I was able to score with the support of my teammates honestly. They recognized I had a hot hand today and I rode on that at the end.”
Neushul scored once in each of the first three quarters and twice in the fourth. She led the game off with an even-strength score just over 30 seconds in and put home the next three in 6-on-5 situations before burying the penalty that sent Avery into a frenzy.
The communication major ended her career with 222 goals, third in Stanford history behind Melissa Seidemann and Lauren Silver, both with 239. Fittingly enough, Neushul’s three goals in the quarterfinal against Princeton on Friday moved her past two-time Olympian and Cardinal great Ellen Estes (214). Estes, a Harvard Business School graduate and executive at Genentech, gave the keynote address at Thursday night’s NCAA banquet preceding the tournament.
With the win, Stanford extended an unmatched stretch of dominance in its home pool. The Cardinal is 81-4 at home since 2008 and has won 29 straight in its iconic venue dating back to 2012. Stanford also became the first host institution to win the NCAA crown in the 15 years since the tournament began.
“I feel like having won we’ll feel a bit better about bidding to host again,” Tanner joked. “To have this stadium and that atmosphere is incredible. It’s too good. There is a lot of pressure when you host and a lot of distractions, but the leadership and maturity this team displayed put us in a position where we were fearless about any situation.”
A back-and-forth affair was to be expected between two schools which have shared the top spot in the national rankings all season.
As she was wont to do all weekend, Grossman drew a whistle in the game’s opening minutes. Tournament MVP Maggie Steffens missed the penalty, but forced Hill to make a save and the Cardinal had a corner throw. Steffens lofted it in to Neushul, who put home Stanford’s first at 7:24 in the first.
Grossman beat the shot clock off an assist from Jamie Neushul at 3:37 in the opening period for Stanford’s other opening-quarter tally, but two scores from Mackenzie Barr and another from Charlotte Pratt had UCLA up 3-2 after one.
At the six-minute mark in the second, Stanford was on a 3-on-2 break with UCLA’s Kodi Hill was whistled for an exclusion. Despite the halt in the momentum, Steffens faked a shot and dropped it off in front to Grossman, who buried her second goal of the game in the man-up situation.
Steffens set up Neushul with 2:02 until the break in the 6-on-5 again. Stanford was patient and worked it around the outside until the Cardinal junior found her senior teammate for a skip to the far side of the cage. The Cardinal was 4-of-6 in its power play opportunities on Sunday.
UCLA’s Alys Williams picked off a pass as the second-quarter clock wound down and raced down the pool, but was stopped by Gabby Stone. Stanford’s goalkeeper made eight saves, including five in the second half.
Tied 4-4 at intermission, Stanford scored the only goal of the third quarter. Kiley Neuhsul drew an exclusion on Alys Williams at 5:58. Quick on the restart, Neushul passed out to younger sister Jamie. Jamie handed it right back to Kiley who fired it home yet again just two seconds after the whistle sent Williams out.
UCLA nearly pulled even twice in the third, but Gurpreet Sohi came up with a field block on a shot from Mackenzie Barr at 3:02 and then Anna Yelizarova did the same as the period ended on an attempt from Emily Donohoe after Jordan Raney was excluded with 35 seconds to go.
The Bruins’ Charlotte Pratt scored two of her three goals in the game in 6-on-5’s in the fourth quarter (6:05 and 2:45) to tie things up and set the stage for a thrilling finish. Neushul’s fourth came on another quick start following an exclusion drawn by Ashley Grossman with 5:44 to go, which made the score 6-5 in favor of Stanford.
