Michigan Matched Against No. 3 UCLA for NCAA Championship Opener
4/29/2019 8:05:00 PM | Water Polo
• NCAA Bracket
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- After earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament on Sunday (April 28), the No. 6 University of Michigan water polo team learned during the NCAA Selection Show on Monday (April 29) that it will face No. 3 UCLA in the NCAA quarterfinal round on Friday, May 10. Start time will be 5:15 p.m. PDT.
U-M will make its fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance and ninth in program history. This year's championship will take place Friday through Sunday, May 10-12, at Stanford's Avery Aquatic Center in Palo Alto, California.
Automatic bids were awarded to seven conference champions, including No. 1 USC (26-1) from the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, No. 5 Hawai'i (18-5) from the Big West, No. 6 Michigan (23-8) from the CWPA, No. 7 Pacific (17-8) from the Golden Coast Conference, No. 14 UC San Diego (21-13) from the Western Water Polo Association, No. 19 Wagner from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, and Cal Lutheran (21-8) from the Division III Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
The three at-large selections include No. 2 Stanford (20-2) from the MPSF, No. 3 UCLA (23-6) from the MPSF, and No. 4 Cal (16-8) from the MPSF.
Michigan and UCLA faced each other twice this season, with the Bruins winning 15-5 at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational on Feb. 23 and 9-7 at the UCSB Winter Invite on Jan. 20. The Wolverines last faced UCLA in the NCAA Tournament in 2016, losing to the Bruins, 5-4, in the third-place game. The fourth-place NCAA finish matched U-M's highest in program history in just the second season under Dr. Marcelo Leonardi.
After the NCAA Tournament moved to single-elimination format in 2017, Michigan has lost to the No. 3 seed each of the last two years. The Wolverines fell to USC (12-6) in 2017 in Indianapolis and to Cal (13-6) last year in Los Angeles. U-M has an all-time record of 6-13 in its NCAA Tournament history.
The Wolverines will enter the NCAA Tournament with a 23-8 overall record. The team defeated No. 15 Princeton, 10-6, in the Collegiate Water Polo Association championship game and went 6-0 in conference play during the regular season.
Michigan is led by the CWPA Player of the Year Maddy Steere, who has 53 goals and 42 assists this season. CWPA Rookie of the Year Abby Andrews has U-M freshman records with 70 assists and 126 points, becoming just the fourth player in program history with more than 50 goals and 50 assists in a season. Senior Julia Sellers is the team's top goal scorer with 63 and was named the CWPA Tournament MVP after scoring hat tricks in both the semifinal and championship games. Junior goalkeeper Heidi Ritner is an All-CWPA first team selection who has 80 career victories and is second all-time at Michigan with 719 career saves.
