The UCLA men’s water polo team will play its first on-campus match of the season at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center this afternoon, where the No. 2 Bruins (5-1) will host No. 6 Loyola Marymount (9-5).
Last Saturday, UCLA defeated Long Beach State 10-4 in its MPSF conference opener. LMU is coming off a four-game winning streak, including a 19-4 drubbing of Harvard in its previous contest, and brings a talented team to this nonconference matchup.
“I think we’re going to have our work cut out for us,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “It’s a really good LMU team, probably the best team they have ever had. They have proven they can play with the big dogs.”
The Lions have won games against then-No. 6 UC Santa Barbara and No. 7 UC Irvine. They took then-No. 2 USC into three overtimes earlier this season before falling 10-9.
Returning to the LMU lineup will be sophomore driver Tibor Forai, who is now healed from a broken nose. Despite not having one of their best players for the past few weeks, the Lions have shown signs of being a top team.
“They seem very determined this year to do more than they have done in the past,” Krikorian said. “They are a very well balanced team with a bunch of threats.”
Looking to put a stop to LMU’s winning ways will be redshirt senior attacker Krsto Sbutega, the squad’s leading scorer with 12 goals this season.
Sbutega leads the balanced Bruin offensive attack. Against Long Beach eight different players scored, including a hat trick from redshirt junior Scott Davidson. Davidson is just behind Sbutega with 10 goals on the season. Hitting shots from all angles has made it difficult for opposing defenses, and the Bruins aim to continue that trend.
“It doesn’t really matter what other teams want to do,” Sbutega said. “We will always find someone who will have a good day. We counter a lot and have a lot of fast guys so it allows a lot of people to score.”
Krikorian will not employ a complicated game plan against LMU. He hopes the team will force the tempo of the game from the opening whistle.
“A lot of it is playing the style we want to play and dictating that type of tempo,” Krikorian said. “This team needs to pay attention to the details. If we do that in every possession I think we will always put ourselves in a good position to win.”
This week in practice, the team has spent less time preparing for what LMU will do in the pool and focused more on their own capabilities.
“We haven’t really concentrated on what they do,” Sbutega said. “We have concentrated on fine tuning our things. We have been solidifying our defense.”
A big part of that solid defense is redshirt junior goalkeeper Chay Lapin. The junior has totaled 71 saves so far this season, including a 15-save performance last weekend that earned him MPSF Co-Player of the Week honors.
Today’s game marks the start of a set of four games over five days for the Bruins. After LMU, the team will play in this weekend’s SoCal Tournament. The Bruins, however, want to start the week on a good note and not overlook a strong LMU squad.
“It’s a really exciting and anxious week,” Lapin said. “It will be fun. It’s important to beat them to get some momentum heading into the weekend against other MPSF teams.”