UCI Hosts No. 3 UCLA, Whittier For Saturday Doubleheader

Saturday, February 11

Irvine, CA

12 p.m.

UC Irvine

UCLA

UCI Hosts No. 3 UCLA, Whittier For Saturday Doubleheader

February 10, 2023 | Women's Water Polo

By: Jordan Kehoe

IRVINE, Calif. – UC Irvine will host No. 3 UCLA and Whittier for their first home contests of the season.

Week Four Notes

THIS WEEKEND
No. 6 UC Irvine vs. No. 3 UCLA
Saturday, Feb. 11 | 12:00 p.m. | Anteater Aquatics Complex
Watch | Live Stats

No. 6 UC Irvine vs. Whittier
Saturday, Feb. 11 | 4:00 p.m. | Anteater Aquatics Complex
Watch | Live Stats

THIS WEEK'S STORYLINES
>UCI enters the weekend with a 6-4 record and rank sixth according to the CWPA weekly poll
>No.3 UCLA comes into the weekend with a 9-1 with their lone loss coming to No. 2 Southern California in the championship game of the Triton Invitational
>The 'Eaters have not beat the Bruins in their 30 all-time meetings
>UCI and UCLA met twice last season where their last meeting was in the NCAA tournament where the Anteaters fell, 8-7
>No. 3 UCLA finished the 2022 season with a 24-6 overall record, 4-2 in the MPSF conference, where they fell to No. 2 Stanford in the MPSF semifinal and then again in the NCAA semi's
>UCI and Whittier have met one time in program history, where the Anteaters prevailed 22-6 in Feb. 2019
>Whittier comes into the weekend with an 0-2 record and have not played since Jan 21

WEEKEND RECAP
>No. 6 UC Irvine was outscored by their opponents, 39-36
>The Anteaters won their first two games of the tournament (12-5 over then No. 22 Loyola Marymount and 8-7 over then No. 7 Long Beach State), before dropping to No. 2 USC and No. 5 Hawai'I
>Nioka Thomas and Elena Flynn rank seven and eighth respectively in the Big West in goals scored (23 and 22)
>Erin Tharp lands seventh in the conference in saves with 24 so far this season
>Sophomore Gracie Helberg recorded a team seven goals spread across four games at the Triton Invitational
>Helberg notched the hat-trick in two of the four contests
>Elena Flynn had five goals over the four games and earned the hat-trick in the win over the No. 7 Long Beach State
>Both Libby Alexander and Jessica Lynch tallied four goals each
>Nioka Thomas, Kennedy East, and Brooke Banta each recorded three goals
>Rounding out the scoring effort over the weekend was Olivia Giolas (2), Mica Schiavone (1), Airian Grisham (1), and Michaela Strickland (1)