The future of the men’s water polo team will be decided this weekend, and the road ahead is anything but smooth.
To keep their season alive, the Bruins must advance to the championship game in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament. The tournament begins on Friday on Pepperdine’s Malibu campus.
Only two teams will advance from this weekend to go on to the NCAA Tournament. A loss in the first two rounds of the eight-team competition would send the No. 4 Bruins (15-6, 5-3 MPSF) home for good.
After losing its last regular-season game to Pepperdine this past weekend, UCLA fell to fourth in the conference standings, thus settling into the fourth seed behind top-ranked USC, No. 2 Stanford and No. 3 Pepperdine.
The Bruins will open the tournament up against No. 5 California (18-7, 4-4 MPSF) at 3:30 p.m. on Friday.
“We have a heck of a first-round matchup against Cal,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “They are as good as any team in the country.”
While the Golden Bears come into the tournament as the two-time defending national champions, the Bruins have a slight edge this season. The two teams have already played three times this year, with the Bruins leading the series 2-1.
UCLA beat Cal for the first time early in the season during the NorCal Tournament. Then after dropping a game to them in the SoCal Tournament, they bounced back to beat them in a thrilling 11-10 conference match in Berkeley. But the Bruins are taking nothing for granted and view the Golden Bears as very worthy adversaries.
“When I think of Cal I think of three things: I think of talent, I think of depth, they’ve got a ton of guys that can play and play effectively, and I think of physical,” Krikorian said. “They’re a team that plays very physical and aggressive and try to rough you up a bit.”
Coming off the 9-5 loss to Pepperdine, the team is doing what it can to bounce back and not let it affect them.
“Everybody was definitely bummed after the game,” redshirt freshman attacker Cullen Hennessy said. “I think everybody came in today and worked well, and we are moving on. We can’t do anything about it now.”
Cal enters the game with the third highest goals per game average in the conference and the fourth-ranked defense in the conference. Comparatively the Bruins rank sixth in team goals and third in team defense.
For UCLA, the focus will remain on defense, and the team will look for a great week of practice to fine-tune its fundamentals and get in some work on man-up and man-down situations, according to Krikorian.
The winner of the matchup will advance to play either UC Irvine or undefeated USC. The team that falls in the championship game will most likely receive an at-large bid to nationals, so the Trojans stand as a possible roadblock between UCLA and the NCAA Tournament. But UCLA is choosing to take it one game at a time.
“Our championship game is Friday. … That’s how we’re viewing things and looking at it,” Krikorian said. “Cal is our main focus, and we won’t even talk about any other team. We’re going to get prepared for them and then go from there.”
After practice on Thursday, the Bruins will have a Thanksgiving meal at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center and then immediately go to a hotel to get ready for their game the next day, where they plan to play it like it’s their last.
“We know what it’s like to lose in the first round. It’s devastating,” redshirt junior attacker Scott Swanson said. “It’s going to be a hard-fought battle, but the team’s up for the challenge. We want to give them that feeling that we had last year.”