Cal Women's Water Polo to Open NCAA Championships vs. Hawaii

The Cal women’s water polo team, fresh off its first victory over USC in 14 years, earned a berth in the NCAA Championships and will open play against No. 4 seed Hawaii on Friday, May 9 at Indianapolis.

Hawaii (21-4) own a 12-11 win over the Bears (19-5) at a tournament Irvine in February. The teams split two regular-season matchups a year ago before Cal beat the Rainbow Wahine 9-6 in the NCAA tournament to advance to the title game for the first time since 2011.

This is the Bears’ 11th appearance in the NCAAs, including four years in a row. Cal has missed playing in the NCAAs just three times since 2019.

They lost 7-4 to top-seeded UCLA in last year’s national championship game.

If Cal beats Hawaii it will advance to the semifinals on May 10 against the winner of a quarterfinal game between top-seeded Stanford (22-1) and either Wagner (21-8) or McKendree (21-7). The Cardinal beat the Bears 12-8 in their only meeting this season.

In the opposite bracket, UCLA (19-5) is seeded No. 2 and USC (27-4) is No. 3.

The championship game will be held on Sunday, May 11 at noon. The game will be aired on ESPNU.

Cal finished third at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament last weekend at UCLA. The Bears lost 15-14 to the Bruins in the semifinals before knocking off No. 2 seed USC 13-12 — their first victory in the series since 2011.

Center Feline Voordouw, a sophomore from the Netherlands, scored three goals in the win over the Trojans. Ruby Swadling, who leads the club with 55 goals, scored twice Sunday, as did Elena Flynn and Eszter Varro’.

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