The UCLA women’s water polo team will begin competition at
the UCSB Gaucho Invitational in Santa Barbara this Saturday, an
event that will culminate with the championship game at the end of
the weekend.
The Bruins took the Gaucho Invitational title last year,
defeating USC in the championship game.
They look to do the same again this season and may very well
find themselves facing the Trojans yet again in the finals.
UCLA (8-1, 4-0 MPSF) can only move forward from its upset at the
Stanford Invitational earlier this month, when the team fell to No.
1 USC in a loss that snapped its 40-game winning streak.
“As with any tournament, we want to go in there and
win,” junior Kelly Rulon said. “Obviously that’s
the goal. It’s not so much about last season’s results
as it is improving in the areas we needed to work on from the
Stanford Tournament.”
Earlier in the week, Rulon was named MPSF Mikasa player of the
week for the second time this season as a result of her eight goals
scored last weekend.
Rulon leads the team with 28 goals out of nine games played thus
far.
“Honors are always nice,” Rulon said. “But at
the end of the day, I’d rather win a championship game.
I’d rather beat ‘SC and Stanford then be named player
of the week any day.”
If practice pays off, Rulon may be able to have both the honors
and the victory.
The schedule in Santa Barbara will prove to be much tougher for
the Bruin team than the schedule in Palo Alto. Rather than facing
an easier team on Sunday before the final third- or first-place
game, the Bruins will play two tough games back-to-back.
“It will be a very challenging weekend,” UCLA coach
Adam Krikorian said. “We’ll have to rely on our depth
and conditioning level, especially on Sunday.”
As in any tournament setting, the earlier games cannot be
overlooked. Starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, the Bruins will start a
rigorous weekend of play.
“We’ll just have to take it one game at a
time,” sophomore Gabrielle Domanic said.
“Hopefully we’ll see good results from practices
over the past few weeks.”