Brown Brings Home Warrior Honor

Photo by John Park

ATLANTA- California entered the WCLL Tournament firmly on the bubble of the MCLA National Championships Presented by New Balance and likely on the wrong side of the bubble.  The Golden Bears left nothing to chance last weekend.  California jumped out to a 10-3 halftime lead over Cal Poly in the semifinals on their way to a 17-7 win avenging an overtime loss from the first game of the season.  On Sunday the Bears played UC Santa Barbara with a chance to avenge their only other conference loss and punch their ticket to Richmond.  The Bears once again took control early and lead throughout the game winning 17-15.  The Bears run through the tournament was fueled in part by the faceoff performance of Hale Brown.  Brown was dominant in both games winning over  40 faceoffs for the weekend including over 90% of his draws against Cal Poly and consistently giving the Bears possession and putting pressure on their opponents.  Behind Brown's efforts the Bears had a golden weekend taking home the WCLL title for the first time since 2019.  Brown was named MVP of the WCLL Tournament and in recognition of his performance has also been named MCLA Division I Warrior Player of the Week.

Cal head coach Ned Webster said, "Hale did an awesome job winning clamps and possessions, handling a ton of on-ball pressure, holds, double-teams, shut-offs - you name it. With our offense scoring 17 both days, that's a lot of extra work for Hale, and he kept battling and grinding and putting the team on his back. Super proud of Hale's effort, leadership and professionalism."

In recognition of this honor Brown will receive a Warrior Burn XP2-O head – a $120 value. Warrior is a proud sponsor of the MCLA