A little over a month into their season, the UCLA men’s water polo team appears to have something in common with Spiderman: an arch-nemesis named Sandman.
Facing top-ranked Stanford for the second time in two weeks last Saturday, the No. 2 Bruins were once again bamboozled by the play of Cardinal senior goalkeeper Jimmie Sandman.
Sandman recorded nine saves on Saturday to stymie UCLA’s offense in the 8-6 Stanford victory after stopping 12 shots in the first matchup between the two teams.
“He’s one of the best goalies in the nation,” junior defender Emilio Vieira said of Sandman. “He made a lot of really great saves against us, but I still think we could have tested him a little bit more.”
On the defensive side of the pool, the Bruins were once again faced with trying to slow down the dynamic Wigo twins. Senior utilitymen Drac and Janson Wigo have combined for 12 of the 14 goals that Stanford has scored in the two games against UCLA thus far.
“Each one of the twins is one of the best players in the nation,” UCLA coach Adam Wright said. “Their talent and chemistry out there makes Stanford so formidable.”
“The Wigos are without question the focal point of the Stanford offense,” redshirt sophomore defender Matt Preciado said. “When we were defending Stanford, we had to always take into account what those guys were doing because they constantly made great plays out there.”
Although both of UCLA’s losses this season have come against the Cardinal, the Bruins are by no means seeing red.
“We don’t feel like we’ve played our best polo against Stanford this year,” Wright said. “The fact that we believe we didn’t play our best on Saturday and we still were in the game down to the wire actually gives us some confidence going forward.”
The team is counting on getting a third shot at the Cardinal sooner rather than later: Both teams will be participating in this weekend’s UC Irvine Invitational. Should another showdown occur, the Bruins are optimistic that they can raise their level of play.
“We actually feel pretty good about ourselves, knowing we didn’t play well at all Saturday and still only lost by two goals,” Preciado said. “That’s the best team in the country right there, but we feel that if we go out and just play our game we definitely have a shot at knocking them off.”
Busting the Broncos
Following the emotional battle that took place in Palo Alto on Saturday, the Bruins were focused on avoiding a let-down on Sunday against No. 11 Santa Clara (13-5). That game-plan was spoiled early by the Broncos who jumped out to a 3-0 lead after the first quarter behind senior utilityman Jack Wall.
“We really struggled early against Santa Clara,” Wright said. “When we really buckled down in the second quarter and on, we showed some good things that hopefully we can build off of going forward.”
The Bruins out-scored the Broncos 11-2 the rest of the way, coasting to an 11-5 victory.
Great Scott!
UCLA redshirt senior attacker Scott Davidson scored a pair of goals against both Stanford and Santa Clara, and the productive weekend allowed him to move up the Bruins’ all-time scoring list into a tie for 10th with Bruin alum Scott Turner.