No. 19 Indiana women’s water polo has been on a 12-day hiatus; its last matchup was against No. 1 Stanford University on March 4. Indiana will return from the break this week and travel to California to face No. 9 University of California, Davis and No. 3 University of California, Berkeley.
Indiana currently holds a 13-8 record but is in last place in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference standings, due to them being winless in the conference. Indiana will have a chance to improve their conference standings this weekend with a win over conference opponent, UC Berkeley.
This past weekend, UC Berkeley hosted No. 2 University of Southern California. The fourth quarter was a thriller between the Golden Bears and Trojans. Junior attacker Ruby Swadling scored the game-tying goal to force overtime with less than a minute left in the game. After junior attacker Maryn Dempsey scored the first goal of overtime, UC Berkeley held its first lead of the game.
With seven seconds left in overtime, USC’s redshirt junior center forward scored the winning goal for the Trojans and UC Berkley lost the close matchup 15-14.
Although UC Berkeley has four losses this season, three of those losses came from No. 1 Stanford. The Golden Bears also have impressive wins over then-No. 5 University of Hawaii, Manoa, then-No. 3 University of California, Los Angeles and then-No. 6 University of Michigan.
Indiana will also face UC Davis this week. The Aggies hold a 12- 8 record and are on a five-game winning streak. UC Davis holds impressive wins over then-No. 9 University of Michigan, then-No. 14 San Jose State University and then-No. 18 University of California, San Diego.
UC Davis is coming off a winning weekend as they beat then-No. 25 California State University, Northridge and then-No. 10 University of California, Santa Barbara on the road.
UC Davis entered the second half against UCSB with the score tied 6-6. The Aggies outscored the Trojans 6-4 in the final two quarters and won the game 12-10. After two conference wins this past weekend, UC Davis rose to the fourth spot in the Big West Conference rankings.
Indiana will face UC Davis at 9 p.m. Thursday in the Schaal Aquatics Center. Then, Indiana will face UC Berkeley at 4 p.m. Saturday in the Spieker Aquatics Complex. The first matchup will be streamed on ESPN+ and the second matchup will be streamed on Pac 12 Network.
Follow reporter Marnie Sara (.@marniesara5) for updates throughout the rest of the Indiana water polo season.
