A well-oiled machine was quietly humming and whirring in training this summer, steadily grinding its gears back to the hightail speed it once operated at last December.
The Triton Invitational in San Diego over the weekend marked the official start of a new season and UCLA men’s water polo reemerged from the shadows of a lengthy off-season with an undefeated tournament performance to back up their recent No.1 preseason ranking.
“I was really happy with the intensity the guys played with and the way they communicated out there, especially for a new team with a lot of new pieces,” said coach Adam Wright.
The Bruins were quick to regain their fervor from last season, despite the exodus of eight seniors. Returning veterans, debuting redshirt players and a handful of highly touted freshman played as a solid ensemble for the first time Saturday in an official game against No. 13 UC Davis, handing the Aggies a 14-4 loss.
Junior attacker Patrick Fellner led the Bruins with four goals and the team converted 50 percent of their power play drives. Strong UCLA defense held Davis to one goal each quarter.
Junior goalkeeper Garrett Danner, who registered 233 saves for the Bruins last season, split playing time with freshman Alex Wolf. The tournament was Wolf’s second outing with the Bruins, after competing in the World University Games with UCLA in July.
“(Wolf) is a very talented goalie, but he has a lot to learn,” Danner said. “I’m trying to do the best I can to help him figure out our system, because it’s not an easy system of play. My goal is to … set an example of what he needs to be doing. He’s learning quickly and that’s all I could ask for. “
After its first official test run as a team, UCLA defeated No. 9 UC Irvine 15-5 in exhibition Saturday afternoon. Though the results did not affect UCLA’s season record, the Bruins secured another win by a margin of 10 points.
Sophomore utility Alex Roelse tallied six goals for the Bruins, finding the back of the cage three times in the second period alone. Danner and Wolf made five and eight saves, respectively.
On Sunday morning, the Bruins’ rapid firing brought about an official 20-4 win over Concordia.
Senior defender Anthony Daboub attacked first off a counter attack, quickly starting a trend that would determine the pace of the game. Concordia’s ship began to sink in a sea of churning waves as eight straight Bruin breakaway goals helped build an 11-1 lead in the third period.
Though Concordia was able to put away three shots before heading into a foreboding fourth period, the energized Bruin machine didn’t rest until the final buzzer, sealing the Eagles’ 16 point deficit.
Daboub led the Bruins with three goals, and as was trending this tournament, Danner and Wolf split playing time in the cage. Freshman attacker Spencer Farrar netted his first two collegiate goals in the fourth. In total, thirteen different Bruins contributed.
Wright said that rather than relying on a couple players to score every goal, UCLA’s program has aimed to promote balance with a vast multitude of capable scorers. Last season’s team took that approach – each singular gear rotating to power up the energy necessary for a national championship.
“Last year, we didn’t have anyone on our team that was a top-10 scorer in the country and/or conference because we had such a balanced attack,” Wright said. “Our hope is that we can continue that trend.”
With a budding 2-0 official record, the Bruins finished the tournament by defeating league foe No. 8 Pepperdine 13-6 in exhibition Sunday afternoon. Freshman attacker Max Staresinic led the Bruins with a hat trick in his first collegiate performance. Wolf played for the entirety of the game, stopping 11 total shots.
The freshmen have been taking advantage of their extended playing time in these preliminary tournaments, and their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed.
“For their first games of college water polo, they did a really nice job,” Wright said. “They are only going to continue to get better with the experience they are going to get throughout the next couple weeks and through the season.”
The Bruins will next play at home in the UCLA Invitational on Sept. 12, and immediately travel to the University of Redlands for the Inland Empire Classic on Sept. 13. Those tournaments will serve as opportunities to improve fluid playing style as a solid unit before entering fiercer waters at the NorCal tournament in Stanford on Sept. 19.
Daboub said that although the team was on top of the technical aspects of the game during the Triton Invitational, the players need to sharpen their mental focus – especially when ahead by a large margin.
“It’s hard to keep focused mentally when we are up by a lot,” Daboub said. “We can’t change the way we are supposed to play and the way we are taught to play.”
Danner hopes that the Bruins will be able to sharpen their technique in man-down situations and ultimately work back to being one of the best five-man teams in the nation. However, he ultimately sees the September tournaments as a way to understand how the whole team works with, rather than against, each other.
“You don’t really get to play games when you are training throughout the summer … you scrimmage against each other,” Danner said. “It’s really important for us to play with each other and get to know each other’s tendencies before heading into the main tournaments.”
Expectations are high for the powerhouse that won the NorCal tournament last season, went 29-3 overall and brought home the national title, but players are well aware of the offseason rust to clean off and preseason gears to align.
“We had great start, but it’s still a start,” Daboub said. “We have a long way to go.”