First-year w. polo heads to nationals

First-year w. polo heads to nationals

Bruins win three of five, survive Zone Qualifying tourney

By Emmanuelle Ejercito

After five matches played over one weekend, the UCLA women’s
water polo team emerged from the Western Zone Qualifying Tournament
held at UC Davis with a berth in the national championships. UCLA
won three out of five matches in a field of 12 teams to finish in
the top four. The top four of the Western Zone, which are UC Davis,
San Diego State, UC San Diego and UCLA, advance to the national
championships.

In the first match of the tournament last Friday, UCLA took on
the Lions of Loyola Marymount. In the first three minutes, the
injury-laden Lions, who were without the services of their two best
players, fell behind 6-0. The Bruins won 13-2.

UCLA’s second match was against UC Santa Barbara. The teams had
split their two previous meetings in the regular season. The
Bruins, however, broke the series tie with an 8-5 win over the
Gauchos.

"We played great defense," UCLA head coach Guy Baker said of the
UCSB match. "It seems like a close score, but the game wasn’t
really that close. That was the best game that we played all
year."

In the first of two matches on Saturday, UCLA and University of
the Pacific faced off. Reminiscent of the LMU match, the Bruins
broke out with an early lead. At the end of the first quarter the
score was 5-0 in favor of UCLA. The Bruins extended the lead to 8-0
at halftime, and when the buzzer sounded to end the game, the score
was 13-2. Sophomore Molly Barnes scored a match-high four goals for
the Bruins. The win over UOP assured UCLA of a top four finish.

UC Davis, the No. 1 ranked team in the nation, met the Bruins in
the semifinal match. UCLA was unable to score in 6-on-5 situations,
and the Aggies converted on key situations to defeat UCLA, 9-3.

"We played well," Baker said. "It’s just at key moments of the
game UC Davis came out on top. Against top teams, we’ve been losing
out on key situations, so we’re just going to have to focus and
concentrate and try to get better in those situations if we’re
going to beat those top teams."

UC Davis went on to win the tournament in the championship match
against SDSU 7-2 on Sunday.

"This year with the addition of UCLA and SDSU, their
scholarships have increased the level of competition," UC Davis
head coach Jaime Wright said. "It was a very high-quality
tournament."

Meanwhile UCSD and UCLA battled it out in the consolation round
for third place. The Bruins and the Tritons played twice earlier in
the season, and UCSD triumphed both times. Sunday was no different,
as the Tritons extended the series lead to 3-0 with a 7-1 victory.
UCSD outscored UCLA 4-0 in the second quarter and the Bruins did
not score a goal until the fourth quarter.

"UCSD played better," Baker said. "The one positive thing is
that we had a bad second quarter, but we played great in the second
half. We were able to rebound from a bad quarter."

Three UCLA team members, Jennifer Cady, Megan Oesting and goalie
Nicolle Payne, were among the 14 players named to the
All-Tournament team.

Also, the Bruins achieved their goal ­ a chance to play for
the national championship in May.

"It’s a first year program, but I’d take going into the
championship in any year," Baker said. "Now we’ll just see what
happens at the national championships."

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