The 2025 Barbara Kalbus Invitational

College - Women
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Here are my predictions, often wrong, for the 2025 Barbara Kalbus Invitational:

  1. Stanford
  2. USC
  3. UCLA
  4. Cal
  5. U.C. Irvine
  6. Hawaii
  7. Long Beach State
  8. UCSD
  9. Arizona State
  10. U.C. Davis

Here is a link to the tournament website: https://ucirvinesports.com/sports/2025/2/11/the-2025-barbara-kalbus-invitational.aspx

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I usually do not go against Jeff, but I will pick:

1 USC
2 Stanford
3 Cal
4 UCLA

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The first-round games went as expected. Saturday’s quarterfinal games and predictions:

  1. USC over LBSU by a lot. LBSU has a pretty good team this year.
  2. Stanford over UCSD by a lot.
  3. UCLA over U.C. Irvine by 3 or 4. Does anyone know why Anna Pearson didn’t pay for UCLA in the game against Pomona-Pitzer?
  4. Cal over Hawaii by 4. Cal is a very good No. 4 seed.

It’s a shame the games aren’t being televised.

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UCLA games at Kalbus are streaming on twitch. HaveFunPlayHard

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Shows you what I know (or don’t know):

Hawaii 12, Cal 11

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Stanford 14 - UCLA 4

That’s a statement win! Will be interesting to see if USC can give the Cardinal a game tomorrow.

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Wow that is a surprising score line

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Hawaii beats UCLA 8-5…that’s gotta be satisfying with the transfer of Mantellato Dias.

Anyone who was there to watch would love some synopsis of this game and the final.

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The replay of it should be on the twitch channel linked in this thread.

Great weekend for Hawaii. Beating Cal and UCLA in a non Olympic year is real impressive

Tough weekend for UCI. Is Dan Klatt no longer the head coach? See him on bench but not standing. Might be eating my words on them winning conference

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Any reports from the games at UCI? Looks like it is Stanford and everyone else at this point in the season.

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Stanford looked dominant this past weekend. Their goalie was covering everything and their field blocking was on point, which gave pause to USC’s perimeter attack. Some very questionable calls on both sides, but I don’t think it affected the outcome.

I’m predicting that we see Stanford and USC in the championship with Stanford taking it all.

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Props to Coach James Robinson and Hawaii, over the past 2 years under James and Mo’s leadership, Hawaii has done something no other college water polo team has done - ever!

  • defeated Stanford (2024)
  • defeated USC (2024 - twice!)
  • defeated Cal (2024 & 2025)
  • defeated UCLA (2025)

I hope these winning ways change the perception of Hawaii and leads more top-tier domestic kids to consider Hawaii over the other “top-4” schools.

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I wasn’t able to attend the Barbara Kalbus Invitational last weekend but here are my observations based upon published reports and discussions with coaches, parents, and fans who did attend.

  1. Stanford had a dominating performance, including a 10-goal victory against UCLA in the semifinals and a 4-goal victory against USC in the finals.
  2. Stanford’s team defense was outstanding.
  3. Stanford’s starting attackers, Ryann Neushul, Jewel Roemer, Jenna Flynn, and Juliette Dhalluin, are as good as any school’s starting attackers in the NCAA era. In 11 games, they have combined for 87 goals on just 138 shots (a shooting percentage of 63) and 53 assists. At listed heights of 5’6”, 5’6”, 5’8”, and 5’7”, Neushul, Roemer, Flynn, and Dhalluin show that you don’t have to be tall to be a great water polo player.
  4. One of John Tanner’s strengths as a coach is the amount of time and attention he pays in practice to situational water polo. It’s no accident that Stanford plays as well as it does during the critical moments of a game.
  5. USC’s redshirt freshman Emily Ausmus is off to a great start but Stanford’s defense was able to slow her and center Tilly Kearns down.
  6. Keep an eye on USC’s freshman center Alma Yaacobi.
  7. Stanford will almost certainly play USC or UCLA in the NCAA tournament. If so, the game or games will be closer than they were last weekend.
  8. Hats off to Hawaii for finishing 3rd, beating Cal in the quarterfinals and UCLA in the 3rd place game. Hawaii is the favorite to win the Big West Conference again this year.
  9. Playing without its starting center, Feline Voordouw, Cal finished 5th. I still think Cal will finish in the top 4 in the NCAA tournament.
  10. UCLA finished 4th and didn’t play well against Stanford in the semifinals or Hawaii in the 3rd place game. Adam Wright seemed to wave the red flag in the second quarter of the Stanford game.
  11. UCLA will have to play much better than it did last weekend to have any chance of winning the NCAA tournament this year.
  12. Does anyone know why UCLA Associate Coach Jason Falitz hasn’t been at recent UCLA games? Falitz, Adam Wright’s right-hand man for many years, has been an important part of UCLA’s success.
  13. U.C. Irvine had a disappointing tournament, losing to Long Beach State in the 7th place game.

Just for the heck of it. The individuals listed below played in this year’s Barbara Kalbus Invitational or Harvard Invitational. One point to the first person who tells us what these individuals share in common in their water polo careers.

Ryann Neushul, Stanford
Jewel Roemer, Stanford
Jenna Flynn, Stanford
Claire Minton, Stanford
Sydney Lowell, Stanford
Talia Fonseca, Cal
Elena Flynn, Cal
Rosalie Hassett, Cal
Mackenzie Walker, Cal
Tali Stryker, UCLA
Dania Innis, UCLA
Electra Urbatsch, UCLA
Jojo Walters, UCLA
Maile Turner, UCLA
Meghan McAninch, USC
Alma Yaacobi, USC
Lauren Hett, U.C. Irvine
Mary Hassett, U.C. Irvine
Alexandra Mould, U.C. Irvine
Anabelle Mundelius, U.C. Irvine
Ally Smith, U.C. Davis
Chelsea Johnson, U.C. Davis
Audrey Cox, Indiana
Portia Sasser, Indiana
Wendy Heffelfinger, Indiana
Kaia Levenfeld, Michigan
Ava Donleavy, UCSB
Morgan Hoffman, UCSB
Annie Kuester, UCSB
Loretta Hovey, UCSB
Lindsey Lucas, Princeton
Ally Lurie, Princeton
Lucy Berkman, Harvard
Wendy Heffelfinger, Harvard

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Diablo-Lamo-680-Royal559 players?
Except Neushul?

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All players have been coached by The John Roemer.

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Not OC natives/players

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One-half of a point to NLM for a good guess. Although it wasn’t the answer I was looking for, one point to cbarrot for a correct answer.

Two points to Pololover1 for correctly noting that all of the individuals on my list played for John Roemer. Roemer, who played for Pete Cutino in the 1970s, had one of the fastest left-handed shots in Cal history. It would be difficult to top his record of coaching 30 players, including three Olympians, in a single Barbara Kalbus Invitational.

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I don’t think Jojo Walters played for Roemer. She was a transplant from TX, who played with SOCAL the first couple of high school summers and then ended with SET.

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Maybe some ODP zone teams that Roemer coached pick up the non Miramonte/Diablo/680/805/DVC players? Cmon jeff give me that extra half point.

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