The Cardinal women’s water polo team had a busy weekend in Los Angeles, resulting in a disappointing third-place finish for Stanford.

“We were excited to play in UCLA’s new pool for our MPSF Tournament this year,” said senior driver Kelly Eaton. “We had played UCLA just a couple weeks prior in that pool and beat them handily, so I would say we weren’t nervous to play them again.”

“Having all of the teams together for the first time since the Irvine Tournament early in our season was different to say the least,” said senior driver Kelsey Holshouser. “Going in to the tournament everyone knows that only four teams from our conference have a chance of making it in to the NCAA Tournament, so it is really ‘do or die’ for everyone when we get to this point in the season. I think having everyone there was exciting.”

“It was good practice for the NCAA Tournament. In both tournaments, we have one game a day. You have to win each game in order to advance and there are a ton of distractions,” Holshouser continued. “This weekend was also the first time we haven’t played at home in a while, so we got to practice being in a new environment.”

Stanford began the weekend with a match against No. 8 Arizona State. The first period ended with a tie at 2-2, but during the second period the Cardinal took charge, scoring three points while holding ASU scoreless.

The match ended with a 10-5 Cardinal victory.

Freshman two-meter Annika Dries and sophomore two-meter Melissa Seidemann each scored two points during the game. Freshman driver Vee Dunlevie, Eaton, freshman driver Jillian Garton, sophomore driver Alyssa Lo, sophomore driver Pallavi Menon and senior two-meter Jessica Steffens each skipped in a single goal as well. Freshman goalkeeper Kate Baldoni saved a total of nine shots.

The team played strongly as a whole to advance to the next day of the tournament.

On Saturday, the Cardinal faced off against No. 5 UCLA. Stanford had a strong start, as it lead 3-2 by the end of the first period. Each team scored a single point during the second period, yet during the third period the Bruins outscored the Cardinal 3-1.

The last period only saw a single point scored by each team, leaving UCLA with a narrow 7-6 victory.

“In our game versus UCLA, we could have done many things better, including scoring more of our six-on-five-person advantage situations,” Eaton said. “We had a lot of opportunities to score, but the ball just couldn’t find the back of the net, and we missed all our chances to resume the lead again, which was crucial. We allowed UCLA to beat us even though we have beaten them every other time we played them this year. I’m sure we won’t let that happen again now that we have such a bitter taste in our mouth after that embarrassing loss this weekend.”

Seidemann had two goals. Holshouser, senior two-meter Alex Koran, Menon and Steffens each smashed in a single goal. Junior goalkeeper Amber Oland saved a total of nine shots.

“I think all of the credit has to go to UCLA for that game and the great weekend that they had,” Holshouser said. “We didn’t come out ready to attack and we paid for that. We were outplayed in the first two games of the tournament. It wasn’t that we didn’t have chances to put the pressure on them and extend the lead we had in the third quarter. We even had chances in the final quarter to tie the game, but we just couldn’t convert.”

The upset resulted in the Cardinal playing on Sunday against California in a fight for third place.

The Cardinal came out stronger than ever as it demolished the Golden Bears – Cal was not able to score a single point during the first quarter while Stanford scored three. During the next three periods, Cal only managed a single point during each quarter while the Cardinal racked up an impressive total of seven points overall.

Stanford was victorious with a score of 10-3.

“On Sunday we played our rivals, Cal, for the bronze, and we beat them handily, proving that we were a much better team than a third-place game,” Eaton said.

Eaton and Seidemann each scored three goals. Dries smashed in two goals. Sophomore driver Cassie Churnside and junior driver Kim Krueger each skipped in a single goal. Oland saved a total of three shots while Baldoni saved two of her own.

The Cardinal finished third in the MPSF Tournament.

“I think [the weekend overall] was a little disappointing,” Holshouser said. “We certainly were not expecting to be in the third place game, but that is the position we put ourselves in and I think we came out and played a solid game. It wasn’t a great game, but it got the job done and it looked a lot better than our performance on Saturday.

“This weekend was great for us in terms of learning how to play on the road again. When we play at home we have a lot of support for other students, friends, family and the community in general. We had crowds of 1,000 and 1,500 for the Cal and USC game, respectively, that really got us excited for those games. From now on, we are going to have to find that spark of energy within ourselves and get ourselves ready to play.”

“We have nine practices until the NCAA Tournament begins and we need to get better each day,” Holshouser observed. “We need to work on all phases of our game and clean up the problems that we saw this weekend. Even in our last game against Cal we can find a number of different things we can do better.”

In about two weeks, the Cardinal will be heading back to Southern California as it goes to San Diego to compete in the National Collegiate Championship.

“After this wake-up call, there is no way we are going to be complacent in the NCAA Championships,” Eaton said. “We are sick of UCLA winning and we are going to take them off their NCAA pedestal. USC, UCLA, Cal – we are not going to show any mercy to those teams in the NCAA Championship tournament. We are there to win three games whether or not they’re pretty.”

“I think as we move forward it is going to be about taking one step at a time,” Holshouser said. “Focus on what we can fix over the next couple of weeks, then concentrate on out first opponent of the tournament and move on from there. We need to finish each game before we start thinking about the next one. I really think that any of the top four teams in the tournament have a good chance at winning the title. We are going to have to prepare and focus for each of them as we plan for the tournament.”

Yesterday, the bracket was announced and Stanford, despite its semifinal loss to UCLA, was given the No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament. The Cardinal’s first opponent in the eight-team tournament will be No. 8 seed Pomona-Pitzer at 4 p.m. on May 14.