Cal Women's Water Polo: Unbeaten Bears Top Three More Top-15 Foes at Stanford Invite

Cal is 11-0 after a weekend that included an overtime win vs. the No. 2 Cardinal

Jeff Faraudo | Feb 6, 2022

Cal Women's Water Polo: Unbeaten Bears Top Three More Top-15 Foes at Stanford Invite /

The fourth-ranked Cal water polo team is not only undefeated this season, the Bears are 11-0 against a schedule made up entirely so far of opponents ranked in the top-15 nationally.

The Bears claimed three more victories this weekend at the Stanford Invitational, including a 10-9 overtime vs. the No. 2 Cardinal on Saturday.

Cal then topped No. 10 UC Davis 9-4 and completed the weekend with an 11-6 triumph over No. 9 Arizona State on Sunday, improving the team’s record to 8-0 against top-10 opponents.

The Bears are off top their best start since 2009, when they opened 14-0.

Cal has this week off before facing No. 1 USC on the road on Feb. 19.

The Bears’ season concludes with the MPSF tournament April 22-24 in Los Angeles and the NCAA championships May 6-8 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Senior All-American Emma Wright, an attacker from Lindsay, Ontario in Canada, scored six goals in Sunday’s victory over the Sun Devils. The captain of the Canadian Olympic team last summer, Wright also had two assists.

She assembled her third career game of at least six goals — there have been just 18 such performances in program history. Wright has two seven-goal games, one off the Cal single-game record.

Goalie Isabel Williams recorded 11 saves against ASU while Elli Protopapas contributed two goals and an assist and junior Shea Salvino had a pair of goals.

On Saturday, freshman Jessie Rose scored off a rebound one minute into the sudden victory overtime period and the Bears snapped an eight-game losing streak against Stanford. Their most recent win over Stanford came in 2018.

Cecily Turner scored her second goal of the game with 19 seconds left in the second period to force overtime vs. Stanford. Elli Potopapas scored three goals in the victory.

Cover photo of Cal's Emma Wright by Catharyn Hayne, KLC fotos

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

Published Feb 6, 2022

JEFF FARAUDO

Jeff Faraudo was a sports writer for Bay Area daily newspapers since he was 17 years old, and was the Oakland Tribune's Cal beat writer for 24 years. He covered eight Final Fours, four NBA Finals and four Summer Olympics.