UCLA Earns No. 3 Seed for 2021 NCAA Championship

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INDIANAPOLIS -- No. 3 UCLA (13-4) will be seeded third for the 2021 National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship as announced by the NCAA Women's Water Polo Committee on Monday evening.

The 10 teams that will be vying for the 2021 National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship include six teams that were placed in the bracket and the remaining four teams will compete for the last two berths in the bracket via two opening-round games.

INTERACTIVE BRACKET: The full schedule for the 2021 tournament

The 2021 championship will be an eight-team, single-elimination tournament (seven games). The opening-round games will be conducted Wednesday, May 12 at Dirks Pool at Spieker Aquatics Center on the campus of UCLA. The winners will advance to the championship, which will be held May 14-16 also at Spieker Aquatics Center, in Los Angeles, Calif. 

In the opening round games, Marist (8-0) will play Salem (18-11) on May 12 at 11:00 a.m. PDT. The winner will be placed in the championship bracket to play top-seeded Southern California (19-1) in Game 1 on May 14 at 12:00 p.m. PDT. In the other opening round game, Fresno State (12-5) will play California Lutheran (7-0) on May 12 at 1:00 p.m. PDT, with the winner advancing to the championship bracket to play second-seeded Stanford (12-5) in Game 3 on May 14 at 4:00 p.m. PDT. 

Rounding out the bracket will be fourth-seeded Arizona State (13-11) taking on Michigan (21-4) in Game 2 on May 14 at 2:00 p.m. PDT and third-seeded UCLA (13-4) facing Hawai'i (11-1) in Game 4 on May 14 at 6:00 p.m. PDT.

The semifinals will be on May 15 at 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. PDT with the NCAA Championship game taking place on May 16 at 3:00 p.m. PDT. All games May 14-16 will be streamed live on NCAA.com.

Automatic qualifiers were awarded to the Big West Conference (Hawai'i), Collegiate Water Polo Association (Michigan), Golden Coast Conference (Fresno State), Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Marist), Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (Southern California), Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (Cal Lutheran), and the Western Water Polo Association (Salem). The remaining three teams were selected at large without geographical restrictions.

Due to a health and safety perspective and Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Guidelines, there will not be any tickets sold or made available to the public for this year's championship. An allotted number of tickets will be made available to the teams participating in the championship game on Sunday only.