Wednesday, November 25, 1998
Weekend tournament chance for watershed
PREVIEW: Team will fight against Waves to appear at NCAA
championships
By Steve Kim
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The men’s collegiate water polo season is making its way down
the home stretch, with a stop this weekend at the Mountain Pacific
Sports Federation conference championship.
The MPSF, which includes most of the national top-10 water polo
teams, lists No. 1 USC and No. 2 UCLA as just two of the
powerhouses.
The tournament will take place at Newport Harbor High School
from Friday through Sunday. UCLA plays sixth-seeded Pepperdine on
Friday at 2:30 p.m. Pepperdine is the defending national champion,
and with that in mind, the Bruins don’t plan to take the team
lightly even though the Waves are suffering from a mediocre
season.
"Pepperdine is still the national champion, and it’s going to do
its best to defend its crown until someone else takes it," UCLA
assistant coach Adam Krikorian said.
In order for the Bruins to qualify in the NCAA championship
tournament, they or the Trojans have to win this weekend. Since USC
is ranked No. 1 and holds the best overall and the conference game
record, they’re almost guaranteed to play in the four-team national
tournament.
The No. 2 Bruins are next in line to get the at-large bid to the
NCAA championship if they fail to earn it by winning the MPSF
tournament. They don’t want to leave their NCAA spot to chance –
they want to take matters into their own hands.
"If ‘SC wins, we’ll probably go to the NCAA tournament, but we
don’t want to rely on that," sophomore defender Blake Wellen said.
"We want to have our fate in our control and just win this
tournament."
If the Bruins beat Pepperdine, they’ll advance to a semifinal
game on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. And if they advance to the final game
on Sunday, the game will be at the same time.
They’re likely to face USC, UCI or Stanford in the more
competitive games, but knowing they’ve beaten all these teams at
one point or another this season, the Bruins no longer face the
question of "if".
"As coaches, we knew that we can beat any team," Krikorian said.
"It was a matter of eventually convincing that to the players. They
know that now so we’ll be ready for each team, starting with
Pepperdine on Friday."
With Saturday’s win against the No. 1 Trojans still fresh in its
mind, the young Bruin team now has added confidence from having its
capabilities affirmed.
"Beating USC in the weekend leading into the tournament is
awesome because our confidence is high and we know we’re playing
well," Wellen added. "We also know we can do some more things so we
just have to stay focused and keep the intensity up."
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