Among the cheering players was graduate student Brooke Doten from Davis, California. Just a year ago, she had no idea that she would even play again, much less win the national championship.
Doten had always been fearless.
Her father, Steve Doten, recalls a time when she was 12 or 13, playing water polo with her older sister and kids several years her senior. Despite the age and physical disparity, Brooke never wavered.
Not even after getting clocked in the face.
“She didn't come out of the game or stop playing. She just went back in and learned,” her father said.
For Brooke, playing above her age bracket has always been the norm.
The daughter of a UC Davis water polo coach, Doten had been around water her whole life. Just like her sister, she gravitated to polo and eventually played for the Davis High team.
“I knew coming in that she was pretty dynamite,” said former DHS coach Doug Wright, who coached Doten in high school.
She joined the varsity team her freshman year in the 2015-2016 season, alongside her sister, senior Kendall Doten. The two helped Davis go all the way to the section championship, before losing a close game to Saint Francis High School.
“It's always great to win, but sometimes one of the best things to do with a really good athlete is to have them lose something meaningful,” Wright said. “She was so close to winning. It was like it just fed a fire.”
Doten’s freshman year would be the last time she’d lose a section final.
Over the next 3 years, Doten won back to back to back CIF and league championships, set a DHS single-season record of 120 goals in her junior year, smashed said record her senior year with 156 goals, and won 2 Delta League and CIF MVPs.
Her talent caught the attention of UC Los Angeles.
UCLA is one of the most prestigious and competitive teams in the country in women’s water polo. It stands atop the NCAA mountain alongside Stanford and USC. Together, the three programs have won every single NCAA championship since its inception in 2001.
“When I got the opportunity to go to a place like UCLA, I was so excited. It was my chance to start chasing the next step,” Doten said. “It was always a dream of mine to play at the highest level.”
Doten committed and began playing for the Lady Bruins in the 2020 season.
“When you're there it's like a completely different level to it all,” Doten said. “National Championship is the vision.”
“Brooke bit off the biggest challenge,” Wright said. “At a program like UCLA, you’re going to have to fight for every minute. Brooke went into that situation, eyes wide open, knowing that it was going to be really hard. She wanted that, she embraced that challenge.”
Doten was unable to make UCLA’s travel team her first two years.
“I was not a strong swimmer,” Doten said. “One of the reasons my first couple of years I didn’t play was because I was too slow.”
However, she refused to give up.
“She wasn't the fastest. She wasn't the strongest player when she came to UCLA,” former player and current assistant coach Brooke Maxsom said. “But she had the most determination and work. The hardest of anyone that I knew during that time.”
Doten stayed at UCLA the whole summer after her sophomore year, training and improving her swimming.
“I was really determined to get faster,” Doten said. “I didn’t want anything holding me back.”
When she returned for her junior year she passed every test, and soon enough a spot on the travel team opened up. However, it was for a defender, not Brooke’s position of center attacker.
Nevertheless, Doten jumped at the chance and played all 30 games at a new position she had never played before. She tallied seven goals, eight assists, four steals, one block, and five exclusions drawn on the season before Stanford eliminated her and UCLA from the National Championship tournament.
Still, Doten was unsatisfied. She wanted to do more and be an even bigger contributor.
“I was like, okay, next level. I want to keep helping the team by doing everything I can,” Doten said. “How do I make myself better?”
Her coaches asked her to become a better shooter, and Doten embraced their request with ferocity.
She started going to practice an hour early and working with her teammate at the time, goalie Amanda Longan, a current Olympian.
After her three-and-a-half-hour practices, she would then train with her younger brother and his teammates on the UCLA men’s water polo team.
All her hard work paid off.
In her senior year, Doten scored nine goals and improved her shot percentage from .333 to .470. She also recorded a career-high in assists (eight), steals (four), blocks (two), and also drew four exclusions.
She scored a career-high two goals in the tournament against No. 3 UC Irvine, but eventually, Doten and UCLA would fall short against Stanford for the second time in two years.
Doten played all 29 games, despite suffering a torn labrum partway through the year. She pushed through believing that this would be her last year playing.
“It was mid senior year, and I was starting to have these issues,” Doten said. “I thought it was my last year.”
However, to her surprise, her doctor told her she could delay her surgery and cleared her to play for another season.
Taking advantage of her additional year of eligibility thanks to COVID, Doten decided to return to UCLA.
“I ended up realizing that if I have this opportunity, why would I let it go to waste,” Doten said. “I ended up coming back and doing my fifth year. And sure enough, it was the best decision I ever made.”
Doten’s return helped provide additional leadership and stability to the team.
“I think if we didn't have Brooke, we would have been in a very different situation the entire season,” Maxson said. “She was a really big leader for us, very vocal in the water, and contributed a lot to our success this year.”
Doten played all 26 games despite her lingering torn labrum, shoulder problems, and a myriad of other injuries. Her key contributions helped UCLA go undefeated in the regular season.
In the NCAA Championship Tournament, UCLA would knock off Wagner in the first round and get their revenge against Stanford in the second round. They would then meet UC Berkeley in the finals.
Doten’s defense would help the Lady Bruins defeat UC Berkeley four to seven, a feat that hadn’t seemed possible just a year ago.
For UCLA, it was a return to greatness. For Doten, it was the realization of a dream on... Click here to read full article
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