After suffering its first loss of the season last Sunday to No. 2 Stanford at the UC Irvine Invitational tournament, the No. 1 women’s water polo team is looking to get back on track.
The Bruins will get their chance with a three-game home stretch, starting today against UC Irvine. UCLA will play CSU Northridge on Friday and end with Pomona-Pitzer on Saturday.
Playing three different opponents back to back to back seems like a difficult task ““ one that includes varied preparation for the three different styles of play. However, coming off tournament play that included a grueling four games in two days, the Bruins’ level of fitness is not an issue of concern for coach Adam Krikorian.
“It will be tough physically, but it won’t be nearly as tough as this last weekend,” Krikorian said. “We’re in good shape and our conditioning level is at a good spot right now, so I think we’ll be fine.”
The Bruins’ execution in their 6-on-5 offensive power play situations is important to Krikorian.
“We did a poor job all weekend on our man advantage,” he said.
According to him, their scoring conversion percentage was about 25 percent.
“That’s just not going to cut it,” Krikorian said. “We need to be up around near 50 percent or so, and we’ll put a lot of emphasis on that this week and hopefully we’ll do a better job.”
While it appears that the Bruins dominated all the games they played in the UC Irvine tournament, with the exception of the loss to Stanford, the team is still emphasizing improving consistency.
This is despite a 7-3 victory against No. 5 Berkeley and a 17-6 blowout over Santa Clara.
“We were inconsistent over the course of the weekend, and we want to fight consistently throughout entire games,” Krikorian said.
One thing that has remained constant for the Bruins is their aggressive offense. The team has outscored opponents 124-56 already this season.
Last year, the Bruins dominated Irvine 15-5 and Northridge 20-2. When the Bruins played Irvine this past weekend in the quarterfinals, the score was far closer at 11-7.
“They played us tough in the second half,” said Krikorian, who commended the Anteaters’ fifth-place finish in their own tournament.
“They’re a tough team, they play physical, they’re an intelligent team, and they’re playing with a lot of confidence coming off a good weekend,” Krikorian said. “I don’t think they have a really weak link or big weakness on their team.”
As for Northridge, Krikorian was diplomatic in his praise of the team, which is currently 5-7 overall.
“They have a good goalie,” he said. “They do a pretty good job defensively.”
Pomona-Pitzer, an NCAA Division III school, has yet to win a game this season.
“Pomona might have a hard time competing with us,” Krikorian said. “We’re significantly more talented than they are.”