W. water polo gets rematch with SDSU, UCSD
By Emmanuelle Ejercito
Who said weekends were made to lounge beside the pool?
The UCLA women’s water polo team heads south to San Diego to
clash with the two highest ranked teams in Southern California, the
second-ranked UC San Diego Tritons and the fourth-ranked Aztecs
from San Diego State.
The Bruins will play both teams on Saturday. They will play San
Diego State (16-5 overall) at noon and UCSD (15-8) at 6 p.m.
Playing two tough games on the same day will provide a good
warm-up for the upcoming qualifying tournament for the Collegiate
Championships. In the tournament, each team plays at least two
teams per day.
"In the qualifying tournament you have to play two games a day,"
UCLA head coach Guy Baker said. "So we are just trying to get used
to that. It’s pretty similar, it’s about six hours apart."
This will not be the first time that the Bruins meet either
team. UCLA played against UCSD in February and was defeated, 6-3. A
month later, UCLA hosted the Aztecs. The score was tight throughout
the game, tied 5-5 going into the fourth quarter. But 24 turnovers
plagued the Bruins and in the end, the visiting team prevailed,
10-5.
UCLA plans to correct the mistakes made in the San Diego State
game, and also hopes to have the same defensive intensity that
allowed it to beat USC, 8-2, on Tuesday.
"We’re going to try to take better care of the ball," Baker
said. "We made some mistakes on defense that we are practicing on.
We’re going to keep pressing on defense. I think everything starts
with defense."
Since Saturday’s meet will be the last meet before the
qualifying tournament, the Bruins are glad that they are playing
two high quality teams.
UCLA plans to use the matches to gauge the improvements that
have been made over the season.
"UCSD and San Diego State are two of the best teams around,"
Baker said. "So it’s a good opportunity (to play them). It just
gives an indication of where we are when we go up to the qualifying
tournament. These two games are a good test and will get us ready
for next weekend."