The No. 9 UC Irvine Women’s Water Polo team (13-13, 4-3) took home the win 22-14 against the No. 16 UC San Diego Tritons (11-14, 3-4) in Long Beach, Calif. on April 10.
UC Irvine started out the game strong, scoring five out of the first six goals of the game and four of them were made within a three minute window.
The first of these goals was by Anteater freshman attacker Michelle Urkov, followed by goals from junior attacker Sara Naulty, junior attacker Mary Hassett, junior defender Annabelle Mundelius and freshman attacker Sydney Hagan.
UC San Diego freshman attacker Caitlin Stayt scored a goal for the Tritons right in the middle of the UC Irvine run.
Following that, Triton junior attacker Emily Cloherty scored a goal with just a little over two minutes left in the first quarter.
With the Anteaters leading the score 6-2, they pushed ahead of UC San Diego even further with another goal from UCI junior attacker Vivian Bailey to close out the first quarter.
The Anteaters came in with another scoring streak — earning another six goals within a little over three minutes.
The game quickly turned into a comfortable lead for UCI after the consecutive scoring by Anteaters redshirt senior utility Madi O’Hara, junior attacker Lauren Hett, Urkov and Hagan.
Hoping to catch up, UC San Diego’s Stayt and junior attacker Abigail Schechter each scored in between UC Irvine’s run.
Both teams then each scored two more goals to end the quarter which left the score 13-4 with three minutes left in the second quarter.
Shortly after, UC Irvine had the first goal in the third quarter earned by Anteater Hassett.
The next goal was for the Tritons by senior attacker Sofia Munatones eager to catch up to the Anteaters with half of the game already over.
There were only five more goals in the third quarter — all but one scored by Anteaters O’Hara, Bailey and two by sophomore center Deirdre Murphy.
The Anteaters had two more goals in the last quarter both earned from UCI junior attacker Hollis Munchoff which left them with 22 goals total for the game.
Late in the quarter as well, UC San Diego had six late game goals to try to overcome the deficit, but unfortunately it was already too late.
The last goal was scored by UC San Diego’s Cloherty which left the final score at a victorious 22-14 Anteater lead against the UC San Diego Tritons.
“Obviously we started hot. I think offensively we weren’t missing a whole lot,” head coach Dan Klatt said in a press conference following the conclusion of the game. “We were pretty fluid offensively.”
Coming off of a win, the Anteaters were ready to take on No. 5 University of Hawai’i in their next game in the Big West semifinals, but ultimately fell short by one point.
Cayley Mazer is a Sports Staff Writer for the spring 2026 quarter. She can be reached at cmazer@uci.edu.
Edited by Jack Fedor and Riley Schnittger
