Five Bruins Earn All-America Accolades
May 30, 2019 | Women's Water Polo
SOCIAL MEDIA: WWP on Twitter | WWP on Facebook | WWP on Instagram
BRIDGEPORT, Pa. -- Five members of the UCLA women's water polo team earned ACWPC 2019 All-America recognition, the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches announced Thursday.
Maddie Musselman headlined the list of Bruin selections with her third-consecutive First-Team honor in as many years. Junior Bronte Halligan achieved Second-Team status in 2019 after earning Third Team honors a year ago. Senior goalkeeper Carlee Kapana earned Honorable Mention All-America recognition for the second straight year while senior Lizette Rozeboom and freshman Val Ayala earned Honorable Mention plaudits for the first time.
Musselman led the Bruins in goals scored for the third straight year with 61 in 2019. The junior's goals per game average (2.35) was consistently in the top five in the Mountain Sports Pacific Federation (MPSF), finishing in fourth. Musselman registered a team-high 19 multi-goal games and nine hat tricks, including a season-high five goals three times on the year (in wins over No. 13 UC Davis, No. 17 Fresno State and No. 5 Hawai'i). She also finished the year scoring at least one goal in each of the last 22 games she played.
Halligan finished third on the team in scoring with a personal-best 34 goals on the year, which ranked 24th in the MPSF at 1.17 goals per game. Halligan had seven multi-goal games and three hat tricks. She scored a season-high and career-high-tying four goals in a win at No. 18 San José State. She scored at least one goal in a personal-best 11 straight games (March 3 through May 11).
Kapana ranked among the conference's top goalkeepers all season, totaling a career-best 234 saves (10.08 per game), which ranked second in the MPSF. She surrendered 6.68 goals per game, which ranked third in the league. In the 8-7 overtime loss at No. 2 Stanford in the NCAA Semifinals (May 11), the Newport Beach, Calif. native turned away a season-high 16 shots.
Rozeboom, who missed 16 games in 2019 due to injury, still finished fourth on the team in scoring with 25 goals for a goals per game average of 1.67. That would have ranked 11th in the MPSF, but she failed to play in enough games to qualify by just one contest. She had seven multi-goal games and four hat tricks in 2019, including a season-high four goals in the NCAA Quarterfinal win over No. 6 Michigan (May 10).
Ayala was the only Bruin freshmen to receive All-America accolades in 2019 after finishing second on the team in scoring with 35 goals and a goals per game average of 1.13. She tallied nine multi-goal games and five hat tricks in her first year, including a season-high three goals in wins over No. 18 CSUN (Jan. 18), No. 6 UC Irvine (Jan. 19), No. 9 Michigan (Jan. 20), No. 17 Fresno State (Jan. 27) and No. 6 UC Irvine (Feb. 10).
