This weekend marks the first home game of the season for the UCLA men’s water polo team, as well as their first conference game.
The No. 2 Bruins will host No. 7 Long Beach State at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center at 4 p.m. on Saturday. The game this weekend will be one of only two games the team will play at the Rose Bowl.
“We love playing at home,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “We love playing out at the Rose Bowl before the football games.”
Conference play is very important because it ultimately decides the seeding of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament, and the goal is to enter ranked as high as possible. The winner of the tournament receives an automatic bid to nationals.
The Bruins are coming off a strong second-place finish in the NorCal Tournament, their highest finish since 2002. En route to the championship round against USC, the Bruins knocked off No. 1 California.
Krikorian said the team is looking forward to a tough game from the 49ers.
“They don’t make a whole lot of mistakes,” Krikorian said. “They force teams to beat them; they don’t really give games away. Every time we seem to play them it’s a close game; they just hang in there and fight. We are going to have to be very consistent throughout the game in order to win.”
One of the Bruins’ focuses for the game will be on their counterattack. The team has been able to use its speed to capitalize on breakaways during previous games and hopes that Long Beach’s patient play will not shut this down.
According to Krikorian, Long Beach State also likes to run defensive zones, something the Bruins will need to consider when they design their offensive attack.
“We are going to work offensively against the zones if the situation presents itself,” Krikorian said. “Hopefully we’ll just be able to execute on Saturday.”
The Bruins will be led defensively by redshirt junior Chay Lapin in goal who registered 45 saves in the NorCal Tournament and 56 so far in the season.
Leading the team offensively will be redshirt senior Krsto Sbutega and redshirt junior Scott Davidson, the two current leading scorers on the team. Sbutega has 11 goals this season, and returning leading scorer Davidson has seven.
Playing at the Rose Bowl also affords the team an opportunity to bring in new fans and spectators.
“Hopefully we’ll get some people there that maybe haven’t seen water polo before,” Krikorian said. “Maybe we can get some people hooked onto our sport, a sport that we love.”