In collegiate women’s water polo, the "haves" and "have nots" are clearly delineated. USC, Stanford and UCLA have won all 12 national titles and are seeded 1-2-3 at this weekend’s NCAA Championship. Everyone else is a have not.
Hawaii’s hunger to join the haves can be satiated at the NCAA Championship at Harvard. The fourth-seeded Rainbow Wahine open Friday against fifth-seeded UC San Diego.
Even a top-three finish would go a long way toward killing hunger pangs. The Wahine have been fourth in their previous three NCAA appearances, the last coming in 2009.
NCAA WOMEN’S WATER POLO CHAMPIONSHIP
At Harvard University’s Blodgett Pool in Boston
Friday’s first round
» No. 2 Stanford (27-2) vs. No. 7 Iona (21-8), 7:45 a.m.
» No. 3 UCLA (26-6) vs. No. 6 Princeton (26-5), 9:30 a.m.
» No. 1 USC (24-1) vs. No. 8 Pomona-Pitzer (18-16), 11:15 a.m.
» No. 4 Hawaii (21-9) vs. No. 5 UC San Diego (25-13), 1 p.m.
Streaming video: Live at NCAA.com
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"Our goal is to do our best and win a championship," second-year coach Maureen Cole says. "That’s the ultimate goal. We are setting those expectations up, but we just want to perform our best. We played our best at the conference championship two weeks ago. We want to play better this weekend. That’s a better measuring point. I want them leaving it all out on the table and wherever it ends up I can live with it if we’ve given it our best."
Hawaii was unbeatable at the Big West Championship, winning its first conference title and allowing three Top-20 opponents 11 goals.
"I was so proud of our defense," UH junior Amy Carlson said. "As a goalie, I need my defense and they came through. The other teams just did not get off shots. We had girls stealing the ball like crazy. …It was great."
Offensively, two-time — about to be three — All-American Monika Eggens will take the school’s career scoring record back to Canada after she takes her last shot at a collegiate title.
She is the only Wahine to play in an NCAA Championship and she is one of the best players in the world, barely missing an Olympic appearance last year when Canada came up a goal short — twice.
"Monika has a unique shot," Carlson says. "USC, Stanford and UCLA … their shooters are very good, but you kind of have a feeling where the ball is going. Monika has a funny wrist when she shoots and sometimes the ball goes the opposite way and she just beats you."
The Wahine are a combined 5-107 against the Big Three, including 0-32 vs. Stanford. The most dramatic difference among those three and the have nots of the water polo world is numbers, according to Cole, a Punahou graduate who won three national titles in her UCLA career.
"They have more depth than anyone else, more players who can play at that level," Cole says of the Bruins, Trojans and Cardinal. "You tend to see games that are close for a half or three quarters and then fatigue comes into play."
The Wahine have won eight straight and beat UC San Diego, the Western Water Polo Association champ, 9-6 in Hawaii six weeks ago. What they remember is the Tritons’ tenacity.
But if Eggens, Amarens Genee, Paula Chillida-Esforzado and their attacking teammates can put the ball in the goal, and the defense can continue to keep it out, there will be an opportunity to go where no Wahine water polo team has ever gone before.
Hawaii can dream. If it plays the way it did at the league event it might do more.
"We went in with that mind-set that we were going to out-compete our opponent," Cole said. "I told them if we did that, it would put us in a good spot and that’s what it came down to — not making excuses or looking to the refs to make a call. We got the job done. That’s what I want to see this weekend."
