Bella Baia - Women's Water Polo Coach - Princeton University Athletics

Bella Baia

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
bellabaia@princeton.edu

Bella Baia, a part of three NCAA tournament teams at UCLA including a national runner-up and two semifinalists, is in her second with the Princeton water polo programs in 2025-26.

In each of Baia's first two seasons, the Princeton men's team won the Northeast Water Polo Conference title, advancing to the NCAA quarterfinals. In 2024, the Tigers collected 11 victories against ranked foes and set a program record with 514 goals. In 2025, it was another 10 victories against ranked opponents and 449 goals, the third-most in program history.

Head coach Dustin Litvak's 2024 team had four All-Americans including Roko Pozaric, who became the fifth player in program history to be named All-American all four seasons. The senior, who was a Cutino Award Finalist, led the Tigers with 75 goals, 37 steals and 90 sprint wins. He also broke the program's all-time goals record, finishing with 281 tallies in his career.

Princeton women's team went 21-7 overall and recorded 10 ranked victories in 2025. Princeton reached the CWPA Championship game and corralled three All-American selections in Kayla Yelensky, Rachael Carver and Lindsey Lucas. Yelensky, the CWPA MVP, led the team in scoring with 94 goals and 118 points overall, adding 48 drawn ejections and 21 steals. She was the first Tiger to reach 90 goals in a season since Adele McCarthy-Beauvais in 2002 and just the third player to get to that mark overall. She graduated second all-time in career goals with 278.

Baia scored 56 goals and had 32 assists across four seasons with the Bruins, helping the team reach the NCAA finals in 2021 and the semifinals in 2019. Baia was a four-time MPSF/Pac-12 All-Academic honoree and was a Scholar-Athlete on the Director's Honor Roll every quarter at UCLA.

Baia began coaching in 2014 with the SOCAL Water Polo Foundation, working with girls youth teams, through 2021. Following her graduation from UCLA, Baia was the lead girls assistant coach at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, was a youth and high school assistant coach with the Premier Water Polo Club, and was a Coastal Zone youth assistant coach with the Olympic Development Program. During the 2023-24 school year, Baia was an Academic Mentor with UCLA's Office of Academic Excellence, assisting student-athletes with managing their academic commitments and building academic skills.

From Orange, Calif., Baia graduated from UCLA with a bachelor's degree in sociology in 2022 and added the master's degree in education, focusing on transformative coaching and leadership, in 2023.