After focusing on conditioning, pass deflection and togetherness in the offseason, the UCLA women’s water polo team is eager to get back into the pool. The team returns with a strong core from last season, along with five new freshmen and believes it can avenge the loss suffered in the semifinals of last year’s NCAA tournament.
UCLA hosts Concordia University and California Baptist University on Saturday, and California State University, Bakersfield and Loyola Marymount University on Sunday. The four games are part of the UCLA Invitational, which will take place at the Spieker Aquatics Center.
Many of the players have developed a strong friendship playing with each other, and junior attacker Emily Donohoe loves being a part of a group that’s bigger than herself.
“It’s exciting to kind of have the same group as last year that went through so much,” she said.
Donohoe also wants the team to begin getting back into a rhythm, remembering how successful the team’s style of play was last season.
“It’s going to be a testament of just going in there and doing our thing as a team,” Donohoe said. “It’s about focusing on ourselves and playing our game.”
Sophomore attacker Rachel Fattal, who represented the United States in water polo on the U.S. Junior National Team and U.S. Senior National Team during the offseason, wants the team to start the season out well in the pool this weekend.
“It’s really, really important for our team to come out strong and be the first people out on the scoreboard,” Fattal said.
With five freshmen coming in this season, coach Brandon Brooks has some decisions to make regarding playing time and redshirting, and he believes that the UCLA Invitational will help him make up his mind.
The team is not worried too much about fitness or rust, as they have been practicing regularly together throughout the offseason, and some of the players won gold together at the FINA World Junior Water Polo Championships in Volos, Greece.
“I expect us to play really hard,” Brooks said. “I expect us to play with great intensity and full effort, and we’ll end up where we end up.”
Although the biggest games for the Bruins don’t come until conference play and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships, this weekend’s tournament is still an important benchmark for the team to measure its progress and development.
“We’re trying to grow,” Brooks said. “Obviously, if we were to lose one of these games that would definitely be cause for concern, but this is our measuring point and hopefully we only get better from here.”