This upcoming weekend will be another opportunity to showcase the diligence and excellence of the women’s water polo team as it travels to Tempe, Ariz., to play No. 10 Arizona State on Saturday afternoon, then fly back to Los Angeles to play No. 9 UC Santa Barbara at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center.
“The difficult thing for us will be to fly to Arizona (today) and fly back on Saturday to play a home game on Sunday,” UCLA coach Adam Krikorian said. “It’s going to be really awkward for us; I don’t think we’ve ever done that before. It will be challenging, but it’s nothing the girls can’t handle. It will be a little test for us.”
The quick turnover will not be the only thing keeping the Bruins on their toes. Although it is early in the season and the upcoming two teams are not the strongest of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference, both Arizona State and UCSB are not teams to be overlooked this weekend.
“I expect a tough game. Arizona State is coming off a game in which they played Stanford pretty tight and had a big win against San Jose State last weekend,” Krikorian said. “Santa Barbara lost to Cal last weekend where they played them pretty close too. So both teams will be bringing some confidence into this weekend.”
“They’re going to be relatively hard and we’re looking forward to having some competition for the next couple days,” junior Courtney Mathewson said. “We can use these as preparation for the harder games coming up in April and May.”
Even with the end of the quarter looming and a long weekend ahead, the Bruins have not lost their ambition and continue to work for improvement. This weekend Krikorian and his team hope to show off the fruits of this week of practice in the area of defense.
“We’ve been working on our defense, our five-on-six defense especially, and half-court defense in general. We’re just trying to get everything together and working to play more smoothly,” senior goalkeeper Emily Feher said.
“It will make a difference in the close games and it’s really important to execute on our opportunities with six-on-five when we need to.”