During Tuesday’s practice, UCLA women’s water polo
coach Adam Krikorian let his team have an open scrimmage.
He was expecting to see a certain type of intensity after coming
off a huge win against Stanford last Saturday. He was expecting to
see a competitive spirit with just one regular-season game
remaining, a road game today against Long Beach State.
He got neither.
On a play where senior Thalia Munro stole the ball midtank from
a teammate, no one pursued her. Six idle heads from the other team
bobbed up and down, watching Munro drive uncontested to the goal.
It wasn’t until goalie Emily Feher yelled out that the team
made an attempt to track her down.
After practice, Krikorian really dug deep and had some choice
words with his team.
“We’ve had some serious lapses of concentration and
lack of effort this season,” he said. “More lapses,
more mistakes and they’ll be more losses. We can’t do
that.
“If we just become satisfied and complacent after coming
off a victory, we’re not going to improve. We’re not
going to be able to beat the Stanfords and USCs.”
Indicative of what may hinder the Bruins’ chances of
repeating as national champions is their constant mental lapses.
After leading by as much as three goals against Stanford, No. 2
UCLA (23-3, 10-1 MPSF) let No. 3 Stanford (18-4, 9-2) take the lead
late in the final quarter. It took an overtime for the Bruins to
pull the victory out.
It might have been Cardinal coach John Tanner’s natural
tranquil demeanor, but after his team’s loss, Tanner
wasn’t all too worried over losing to the Bruins.
“I’m sure he was thinking they didn’t play
their best and they still had a shot at beating us,”
Krikorian said. “We didn’t (play well) either and
we’ll see in a couple of weeks when we play them who wants it
more.”
Against No. 10 Long Beach State (14-11, 4-7), a key matchup to
look for is 49er senior Cassie Azevedo and the Bruin who has to
guard her. Azevedo is a dangerous scorer as she currently leads the
MPSF conference in scoring, nailing 52 goals in 22 games ““ a
2.36 goals-per-game average.
The Bruins have had trouble all season containing opposing
team’s centers.
“She’s a good center and a lefty too,”
Krikorian said. “This will be a good test right to see if we
can shut them down. We want to be playing our best before the
conference tournament.”