MERCED, Calif. – The University of California, Merced women's water polo team will wrap up the 2024 season this weekend, hosting Cal State East Bay before heading to the Bay Area for the NAIA West Invitational.
Friday, April 12 vs. Cal State East Bay | 2:00pm PST | Aquatic Center | Merced, Calif.
Saturday, April 13 vs. OUAZ | 12:30pm PST | PEAC Pool | Vallejo, Calif.
Saturday, April 13 vs. Cal Maritime | 3:00pm PST | PEAC Pool | Vallejo, Calif.
Sunday, April 14 vs. TBA | Time TBA | PEAC Pool | Vallejo, Calif.
OPENING SPRINT
UC Merced will welcome Cal State East Bay to Merced for Senior Day and the home finale. Prior to the match, Merced native Hope Stokes will be celebrated. Stokes, one of just eight Bobcats to play the first two seasons in program history, enters the weekend with 73 career goals and 220 saves in a UC Merced uniform. Prior to UC Merced adding women's water polo as a varsity sport, Stokes played at Merced College and Fresno State.
NAIA WEST INVITATIONAL
The Bobcats will head to Vallejo for the NAIA West Invitational April 13-14 hosted by Cal Maritime at PEAC Pool. The three-team tournament also includes Cal Maritime and OUAZ. The teams will play round robin games on Saturday to determine seeding. On Sunday, the #1 seed will advance straight to the title game and will await the winner of the second-place team vs. the third-place team. Each squad is guaranteed three matches, with one team playing four times. Last year, OUAZ took first in the tournament with a 5-0 record and a 15-13 win over Westcliff in the title match. Westcliff will not field a team this year.
BOBCATS NAIA POSTSEASON HISTORY
UC Merced took third in last year's NAIA postseason tournament which was played at the Aquatic Center in Merced. The Bobcats went 2-3 in the tournament, beating Cal Maritime 14-10 in the round robin game and 18-5 in the third-place match. Stokes was named the Bobcats NAIA Finals MVP after tallying eleven goals and eight steals overall. Stokes also played 40 minutes in the cage and stopped 14 shots. Viviana Luna scored 12 goals, had eight assists, and had eight steals. Arianna Martinez scored six goals, while Kaitlyn Kimmel added five. Carlin Rodelo had 17 saves.
BOBCATS OFFENSIVE NUMBERS THIS SEASON
Liberty Hamilton leads the Bobcats balanced offensive attack with 27 goals. Melanie Torres paces all freshmen with 26 goals followed by Aislyn Sorsky with 22 goals. Overall, ten Bobcats have scored at least one time and six Bobcats have deposited 10 or more shots into the back of the net. Piper Ferris currently owns the Bobcats longest active goal streak with a score in three consecutive games dating back to the Michigan Invitational. She has five goals in the stretch and has 15 tallies overall. Hope Stokes also has 15 goals, while Claudette Asenjo scored ten goals to start the year before going down with an injury.
SCORING STREAKS EARLIER THIS SEASON
Liberty Hamilton and Melanie Torres both put together six-game goal scoring streaks starting on February 17 and had multiple goals in four of their six games. Hamilton had a hat trick against NCAA Division III opponents Occidental and Caltech and she also added at least one steal a match in her goal scoring streak. Torres' tear was highlighted by a hat trick against NCAA Division One foe Virginia Military Institute on March 1 becoming just the second Bobcat ever with a hat trick against a D1 squad. She also had two assists in the match. Prior to their six-game streak, Hope Stokes scored a goal in six straight matches before moving to the cage in a full-time capacity.
TORRES AT MICHIGAN INVITATIONAL
Melanie Torres started rolling again at the Michigan Invitational with four consecutive multi-goal matches. The freshman registered a hat trick against University of Toronto and then scored two goals each against NCAA Division One foes Bucknell, Saint Francis, and #9 University of Michigan. She needed just three shots to notch her multi-game outing against SFU.
HOPE STOKES
Hope Stokes, who accepted the role as the full-time goalkeeper on February 17 and has started all 14 games in the cage since then, has recorded 202 total saves. She also started the Bobcats first two games of the season in the cage. She played in the field for six games between stints. The senior has tallied double figure saves in 14 games, including making 15 saves three times and recording a program-record 17 saves at Occidental on March 1. She has reset the program's single-game saves record three times already this season. The Merced native has more saves than goals allowed in her last outings, coming against Chapman and Whittier over Easter weekend down in Southern California. She has wins over Cal Maritime and Caltech this year.
FOURTH QUARTER EXPLOSION AT CHAPMAN
Head coach Johnny Bega's squad scored six goals in the final frame at Chapman on March 29, matching their 2024 high for most goals in a frame. Hope Stokes scored first for the Bobcats at the 5:58 mark in the fourth and was one of two multi-goal scorers along with Liberty Hamilton. Aislyn Sorsky and Piper Ferris also recorded a goal for UC Merced. UC Merced's fourth quarter goals came from Stokes (5:58), Hamilton (4:56), Hamilton (4:15), Sorsky (1:51), Stokes (:50), and Ferris (:05). Prior to the fourth quarter explosion, the Bobcats hadn't scored six goals in a true road match since March 1 at Occidental.
AZEVEDO WITH NATIONAL RECOGNITION
Junior Jacqueline Azevedo has been named a semifinalist for the 2024 Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar of the Year award. The Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar award has a decades-long tradition of recognizing outstanding, young minority men and women who have distinguished themselves in their academic and athletic pursuits. Azevedo, the first semifinalist in UC Merced history, has been a key part for the Bobcats in the first two years of the program's existence. She was an All-Sierra Pacific "B" Division First Team member in the Bobcats inaugural year in 2023, while this season she has recorded three steals, two assists, and a goal. A management & business economics major, Azevedo also leads the Bobcats out of the pool with the highest GPA on the team and is a part of Associated Students of UC Merced as a Senator At-Large. Azevedo has volunteered with UC Merced's Community Engagement Center for many initiatives such as Bobcats Give Back, Lake Clean Up, and Yosemite Face Lift. She has also been a part of Helping Hands in the Merced community and Move In Weekend on campus. Of the nearly 600 scholar-athletes nominated, one male and one female athlete will be selected as Sports Scholar of the Year. The 2023 overall winners were Lyle Yost from The Ohio State University and Camber Hayes of Miami University. Other past Arthur Ashe Scholars have included the University of Wisconsin's Russell Wilson (2011), the University of Tennessee's Kara Lawson (2003), San Diego State University's Marshall Faulk (1993), and Stanford University's Simone Manuel (2017), to name a few who have gone on to achieve great success.
WIN OVER CALTECH
UC Merced women's water polo earned their first ever win against a NCAA opponent with a 12-3 win over NCAA Division III Caltech at the Convergence Invitational on March 2. The Bobcats earned the win behind their second highest scoring output of the season in addition to putting together their top defensive performance allowing just three goals. Piper Ferris scored a career-high four goals, while Liberty Hamilton had a hat trick. Hope Stokes registered 15 saves. The Bobcats win was wire-to-wire and head coach Johnny Bega's squad led 3-0 at the end of the first quarter.
MORE FROM POMONA CONVERGENCE
UC Merced started to find their rhythm offensively at the Pomona Convergence Invitational, scoring at least eight goals in three of the four matches including twice in the same day against Occidental and VMI. Prior to that, the Bobcats had never scored eight goals in back-to-back matches against four-year varsity teams. The next day is when UC Merced scored 12 goals in the 12-3 win over Caltech.
NEWCOMERS
Head coach Johnny Bega's squad features the first recruiting class in program history and the squad has accounted for 101 of the Bobcats 120 goals, which is 84%. The group is Claudette Asenjo, Liberty Hamilton, Aislyn Sorsky, Melanie Torres, Karla Hernandez, and Piper Ferris. CCCAA All-Americans Asenjo and Hamilton joined the Bobcats from Merced College. Hamilton, a 2X All-American, scored 155 total goals as a Blue Devil and ranked top ten in the CCCAA back-to-back years in goals and steals. Hamilton has two years to play for the Bobcats. Asenjo is a sophomore. Sorsky, Torres, Hernandez, and Ferris are freshman.
RETURNING SQUAD
Hope Stokes and Viviana Luna both return for the Bobcats following seasons in which they tallied 58 and 57 goals, respectively. Stokes was also solid in the cage when called upon and was named the Bobcats NAIA Finals Team MVP. Now sophomores, Kaitlyn Kimmel (14) and Arianna Martinez (12) ranked third and fourth on the team in scoring. Carlin Rodelo logged over 650 minutes in the cage in her first collegiate season in 2023. Juliana Torres, Jacqueline Azevedo, and Paula Villalta Valle also return following a season in which they all received a plethora of minutes.
THE OPPONENT'S BRIEFING
Cal State East Bay has won 15 games this year and are 4-1 in the WWPA. Also of note, they have two wins over NCAA Division One opponent Santa Clara and a win over NCAA Division One opponent VMI. Luna Sarmiento leads the team with 47 goals and 32 steals. Including Sarmiento, five Pioneers have 30+ goals with four of those six scoring at least 35 times. Alex Andrist has scored 38 goals with a .623 shooting percentage. Daniela Passoni is expected to start in the cage. The goalkeeper out of South Africa has 210 saves to 203 goals allowed. CSUEB is 3-0 all-time against the Bobcats.
The OUAZ Spirit and UC Merced have three common opponents this season in Azusa Pacific, Whittier, and Cal Lutheran. Both teams lost to the first two, but OUAZ did beat Cal Lutheran 15-14 in overtime on February 23 at the Tina Finali Tournament. OUAZ is 7-13 overall. Tori Higginson leads the way with 19 goals, while 2023 NAIA Finals MVP Jasmine Miller has eleven. Gabby Fisher and Morgan Fenner have split time in the cage. OUAZ is 1-0 all-time against the Bobcats.
Cal Maritime won six of its 10 home matches this season, a record that includes a four-game win streak to win the CWPA Tournament #2 title — the first of consecutive championships in as many weekends during the month of February for the Keelhaulers. UC Merced is 4-0 all-time against the Keelhaulers outscoring the opponent by an average of nine goals per game.
UC MERCED TO JOIN WESTERN WATER POLO ASSOCIATION
The Western Water Polo Association announced the addition of the University of California, Merced to its men's and women's membership on January 11. Following a successful application for NCAA Division II membership, UC Merced enters a minimum three-year transition period before earning NCAA active membership. However, UC Merced will still appear on WWPA schedules next season. The WWPA Men's and Women's Executive Councils voted unanimously to recommend that UC Merced be admitted to the conference upon its admission to the NCAA. UC Merced would provide the women's conference nine teams. The Bobcats join Biola, Cal State East Bay, Cal State Monterey Bay, Fresno Pacific in the West; and Gannon, McKendree, Mercyhurst and Salem in the East.
