No. 10 Women's Water Polo Hosts CWPA Championship This Weekend

Saturday, April 29

Princeton, N.J.

12:00 PM

Princeton University

Saint Francis

Kaila Carroll

No. 10 Women's Water Polo Hosts CWPA Championship This Weekend

April 27, 2023 | Women's Water Polo

PRINCETON – The No. 10 Princeton Women's Water Polo Team hosts the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Tournament at DeNunzio Pool this weekend.

The Tigers are the No. 1 seed in the tournament and will play the winner of Brown and Saint Francis on Saturday at 12 p.m. The championship game is Sunday at 12 p.m. while the third place contest is at 10 a.m.

Jovana Sekulic was named the CWPA Most Valuable Player and first-team all-conference. She paced the team in goals (65) and drawn ejections (70) while also adding 18 steals. The sophomore had a .657 shooting percentage, contributing 13 hat tricks and 22 multi-goal performances. Sekulic had a stretch of 10 games where she had nine hat tricks and two tallies in the other contest.

Lindsey Lucas was picked as the CWPA Rookie of the Year and first-team all-conference after going 25-3 with a .591 save percentage and 288 saves. Her 288 stops are the seventh most all-time. She produced 16 games with at least 10 saves with her signature moment being a 19-stop game over No. 7 Long Beach State.

Kayla Yelensky was also first-team all-conference, picking up 51 goals and 25 assists along with 37 drawn ejections. Yelensky had nine hat tricks with seven of them coming against nationally ranked opponents. The sophomore added multi-goal games in 23 contests this season and seven multi-assist outings.

Laura Larkin showed off an all-around game with 20 goals, 22 assists and a team-best 33 steals for Princeton, nabbing second-team all-conference. She scored in 16 games and had 10 performances with at least two steals. Her season-best contest came vs. Bucknell with five swipes while she added a hat trick vs. No. 19 Brown.

Head coach Derek Ellingson was also named CWPA Coach of the Year for the second time in his career. The Tigers' 27 wins are tied for the fifth most in program history. Princeton had a 15-game winning streak during the season and had 15 victories over ranked opponents. The Tigers reached No. 6 in the CWPA Varsity Poll, tied for the best mark in Princeton history.

The Tigers have nine players with at least two goals in Sekulic, Yelensky, Shanna Davidson, Kaila Carroll, Kate Mallery, Rachael Carver, Annie Robinson, Meera Burghardt and Larkin. Carver leads the team in points with 29 goals and 72 assists which is the most in a single season in program history.

Princeton was won four CWPA titles in program history in 2000, 2012, 2013 and 2015. The Tigers have gone to the CWPA Championship in three of the last four seasons, falling to Michigan each time. Those two conference foes split this season.