I was looking for a list of the new freshmen recruits for women's water polo and couldn't find one anywhere. How did we do? Does anybody have a link?

If you go to the website Water Polo Planet, go to the high school girls message board, you'll find a topic 2024 recruits. There's a list of domestic recruits for each school. You may have to sign up, but it's free.

coachdeke said:

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If you go to the website Water Polo Planet, go to the high school girls message board, you'll find a topic 2024 recruits. There's a list of domestic recruits for each school. You may have to sign up, but it's free.

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Thanks Coach.

Here is a bit more to chew on regarding the 2024 recruits on the list. Talia Fonseca entered last January. I believe she was the prime back-up to Williams last season. She was listed on the US Junior National team(under 20) roster last I checked. Hassett from Miramonte was listed on the last US Youth National Team (under 18) roster posted. Murphy from Soquel was POY in her conference. Roder (Corondelet) was on the all-conference team.

For reference, Water Polo Planet has fallen in to a coma in the past six months. There is not much info available as to the cause. Virtually all the key posters from that site have migrated over to a new site, Water Polo Exchange. https://waterpoloexchange.discourse.group/

Cal graduated seven players and has listed only three recruits (2024). I hope that the Bears have an international recruit or two coming in, too. I wonder if the Aussie that did not attend Cal last year due to the Olympics will return this season? The roster is never listed until the week or day of the initial match. GO BEARS!

Polodad said:

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Here is a bit more to chew on regarding the 2024 recruits on the list. Talia Fonseca entered last January. I believe she was the prime back-up to Williams last season. She was listed on the US Junior National team(under 20) roster last I checked. Hassett from Miramonte was listed on the last US Youth National Team (under 18) roster posted. Murphy from Soquel was POY in her conference. Roder (Corondelet) was on the all-conference team.

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Seems like UCLA has a lot of momentum on both men's and women's sides. I wonder what our pre-season rankings with be? How did Kirk do in recruting?

Kirk did not get either of the top 2 recruits. Both are at UCLA. He did get a Croatian attacker who is highly regarded and another eastern Euro xfer who was 2nd top scorer at SJSU.

Cal men are pre-season ranked #2 behind UCLA. My guess is the women will be 4 or lower.

Polodad said:

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Cal men are pre-season ranked #2 behind UCLA. My guess is the women will be 4 or lower.

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It seems like Coralie has a tough time recruiting the elite players. The biggest mistake ever was hiring Rich Corso which cost us the Steffens girls. We've always been a notch below Furd, SC, and UCLA except during Olympic years. I wonder what it would take to get us over that hump.

Can't complain about Kirk - obviously.

I agree with this sentiment. For the Bears to consistently finish in the top 3, Coralie needs to get the top domestic player coming out of high school every other year or so. That's not happening. Recently these players are choosing Stanford and UCLA. Last year it was SC. The only other model for success is to get many top internationals which has served Kirk well.

Bumping this thread. WWP schedule is out and a teaser article up on the Cal site. To answer S71's question, Ruby Swadling is back for her final season.

Polodad said:

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Bumping this thread. WWP schedule is out and a teaser article up on the Cal site. To answer S71's question, Ruby Swadling is back for her final season.

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Polodad. - I ran into an old Cal MWP player who told me Cal can't seem to recruit elite women. Why do you think that is?

Polodad-I read the article about Cal's 2025 Schedule that mentioned the return of the Aussie Ruby Swadling. It also mentioned Rosalie Hassett which you mentioned on this site (above). Do you know the identity of other recruits on this season's team? Will Soquel's Murphy and Carondelet's Roder be on the team?

I printed out the 7 recruits for Cal's 2025 class from this website. Thank you.

juarezbear said:

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Polodad said:

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Bumping this thread. WWP schedule is out and a teaser article up on the Cal site. To answer S71's question, Ruby Swadling is back for her final season.

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Polodad. - I ran into an old Cal MWP player who told me Cal can't seem to recruit elite women. Why do you think that is?

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My take...Stanford has cache' as Stanford and a remarkable winning tradition in WWP and probably the best collegiate women's coach in John Tanner . They get every recruit they seriously target and they don't pay much attention to international recruits, although they do have a Canadian Olympian on the current roster. So if Stanford targets an elite domestic, that girl selects Stanford.

UCLA dominated this sport in the aughts, starting with the Coralie era in the late '90's under Guy Baker and Adam Krikorian, great recruiters and tacticians. That rep has stuck. Adam Wright is recognized as a really good coach. If Stanford is not recruiting an elite domestic player, UCLA seems to have the inside track on that recruit over the history of the sport.

USC dominated when Jovan was coaching (Varsity Blues victim). SC still gets some of the domestic elites, including Freshman Emily Ausman fresh off our Olympic team. Look for her to be a dominate play over the next 4 years. USC does really well in recruiting Aussies and Spaniards.

Then we get the rest, but by this time there aren't many left. Coralie got Williams in goal 5 years ago. She is elite. She got Bonaguida last year and Haslett this year, both in the National pool and members of the PanAm team that won gold last month. Fonseca (goalie) was on our Junior National team a year ago and that is a good sign. Coralie has been a good international recruiter and maybe she is turning the corner on domestic rec

Schroeder71 said:

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Polodad-I read the article about Cal's 2025 Schedule that mentioned the return of the Aussie Ruby Swadling. It also mentioned Rosalie Hassett which you mentioned on this site (above). Do you know the identity of other recruits on this season's team? Will Soquel's Murphy and Carondelet's Roder be on the team?

I printed out the 7 recruits for Cal's 2025 class from this website. Thank you.

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S71...I'm blind on this like everyone else. I don't expect to see the roster until mid-January. BTW, UCLA has not posted their roster either. My guess is both Murphy and Roder will be on the roster since they were announced in IG. The surprise could be that 2 internationals,Dunn from NZ and an Israeli National team member were announce late and Coralie has slipped a number of internationals into school in January with immediate eligibility.

The NZ & Israeli recruits were listed among the 7 for 2025. However, recruits have enrolled mid-year and played in the past so it will be interesting to see the actual roster. GO BEARS!

Polodad said:

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juarezbear said:

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Polodad said:

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Bumping this thread. WWP schedule is out and a teaser article up on the Cal site. To answer S71's question, Ruby Swadling is back for her final season.

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Polodad. - I ran into an old Cal MWP player who told me Cal can't seem to recruit elite women. Why do you think that is?

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My take...Stanford has cache' as Stanford and a remarkable winning tradition in WWP and probably the best collegiate women's coach in John Tanner . They get every recruit they seriously target and they don't pay much attention to international recruits, although they do have a Canadian Olympian on the current roster. So if Stanford targets an elite domestic, that girl selects Stanford.

UCLA dominated this sport in the aughts, starting with the Coralie era in the late '90's under Guy Baker and Adam Krikorian, great recruiters and tacticians. That rep has stuck. Adam Wright is recognized as a really good coach. If Stanford is not recruiting an elite domestic player, UCLA seems to have the inside track on that recruit over the history of the sport.

USC dominated when Jovan was coaching (Varsity Blues victim). SC still gets some of the domestic elites, including Freshman Emily Ausman fresh off our Olympic team. Look for her to be a dominate play over the next 4 years. USC does really well in recruiting Aussies and Spaniards.

Then we get the rest, but by this time there aren't many left. Coralie got Williams in goal 5 years ago. She is elite. She got Bonaguida last year and Haslett this year, both in the National pool and members of the PanAm team that won gold last month. Fonseca (goalie) was on our Junior National team a year ago and that is a good sign. Coralie has been a good international recruiter and maybe she is turning the corner on domestic rec

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What hurts the most on this is that if Corso hadn't been the coach, Maggie Steffens could've turned this program around and put us on par with Furd and UCLA….oh well

The Steffens sisters were huge misses for Cal. I was not thrilled when Sandy hired Corso. Seemed like a force fit because he had most of his experience with HS boys and the Men's National team. The problem she faced was the women's college game was still in infancy and the coaches with established credentials were at UCLA and Stanford.

Maggie's older sister Jessica had originally signed and committed to Cal along with her cousin Stephanie Snugg when Amber Drury was the coach before Corso. Amber let Jessica out of here LOI very late in the year. Once Jessica went to Stanford, Maggie was never coming to CAL.
Correct on Corso only coaching boys/ men. I actually played for him for 3 years after playing at CAL. I don't think he was a good fit to coach women. It's not easy to make that transition. I say that having coached both boys and girls myself.

waterbear said:

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Maggie's older sister Jessica had originally signed and committed to Cal along with her cousin Stephanie Snugg when Amber Drury was the coach before Corso. Amber let Jessica out of here LOI very late in the year. Once Jessica went to Stanford, Maggie was never coming to CAL.
Correct on Corso only coaching boys/ men. I actually played for him for 3 years after playing at CAL. I don't think he was a good fit to coach women. It's not easy to make that transition. I say that having coached both boys and girls myself.

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Corso wasn't a good fit for college water polo. I was part of a conversation he thought was confidential and planned to break several NCAA rules while expressing the desire to control his women at Cal at a ridiculous level.

Did we have a good recruiting class this year?

juarez,

My guess is you are asking about the signees that have yet to arrive on campus. Here is the list copied from Water Polo Exchange.

Cal
Gabby Reichley - Marin Academy
Lexi Nelson - Menlo Atherton HS
Harper Price - Newport Harbor HS
Reece Helsel - Clovis East HS
Marina Brown - San Marcos High School
Holly Dunn - Auckland, New Zealand
Miriam Bogachenko - Israel

Reichley is a high scoring attacker at the HS level. Nelson is a goalie from the South Bay. Price is a center from one of the top Orange County schools and a member of the Yoth National team. Helsel is not known to me. Brown was a late signee form the top program in Ventura County. Dunn is a lefty from the NZ National team. Bogachenko is a high scoring attacker from the Israeli National team. It would not be a shock of Dunn and Bogachenko enrolled this month with immediate eligibility.

Cal continues to lose out on the Lamorinda crowd when it comes to competing against UCLA, USC or Stanford. The men's team also doesn't seem to have the same recruiting power in this once dominated turf.

Cal is losing seven seniors. Five were key contributors on the team. The Bears need to replace those five to be competitive. Unfortunately, GK Isabel Williams is likely irreplaceable. GO BEARS!

I don't expect scoring to be an issue for the Bears in '25. The entire roster is comprised of top scorers in HS. Finding a defense will likely be the issue.

The '25 roster is up on the Cal site. The NZ lefty and Israeli attacker are listed. A surprise to me is Varro, Hungarian junior national center, and Ramirez, all CIF Division 1 attacker are also listed.

2025 Women's Water Polo Roster - California Golden Bears Athletics

Cal brought in seven freshmen (like projected). However, some of the originally named players (five) are not in the class. The three that you projected from the Bay Area are there [Hassett, Murphy, Roder] plus the Israeli & New Zealand imports are also listed. Varro & Ramirez were the surprise additions.

Class breakdown: 24
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freshmen (7)
sophomores (9)
juniors (4)
seniors (4)

The players that did not end up in Cal's 2025 Class were Reichley, Nelson, Price, Heisel & Brown. Were any of these major losses or did the coaching staff bring in the most talented players available to them? GO BEARS!

S71…the missing 5 are HS seniors. Expect them on the '26 roster.

The women's season opens tomorrow in Fresno against San Jose State, followed on Saturday by Fresno State and UCSD. There is an exhibition on Sunday against Hawaii. Looks like there will be streaming tomorrow and Saturday.