UCLA men’s water polo saw an old problem come back to haunt it in its game against Stanford, a problem it felt great improvement in over the past month.
In their first day of Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play, the No. 2 Bruins failed to take advantage of 6-on-5 opportunities against No. 4 Stanford, ultimately losing 8-6.
“I felt like we didn’t give our best,” said redshirt junior utility Cristiano Mirarchi. “We could have definitely had a better game, especially on 6-on-5.”
UCLA went 0-for-11 on power plays, letting the Cardinal score five out of seven times in man-down situations.
“That right there shows all the difference,” said coach Adam Wright.
This was a complete contrast from last week’s game where UCLA went six for eight on power plays, while the Bruin defense held the Cardinal to one for 14.
“You can’t do that; you can’t put yourself in that position,” said Wright with regard to allowing eleven 6-on-5 opportunities. “We had a lot of opportunities, but for some reason we never got ourselves into the game.”
After a bad start, giving up two goals in its scoreless first quarter, UCLA was unable to come back and take the lead, losing to Stanford for the first time since 2009.
“We threw a couple of balls away and we never really got in a rhythm, never got into a good stage,” Wright said. “When it was time to shoot, we did not approach it with the right confidence.”
(Neil Bedi/Daily Bruin senior staff)
The two teams went head-to-head all game, with the Bruins trailing in every quarter. Stanford took an 8-4 lead, its biggest of the game, in the fourth quarter, before Mirarchi scored two counter-attack goals to end the game with a score of 8-6.
“Last weekend, we won pretty easily against (Stanford), but this time the game was different,” said senior utility Aimone Barabino. “We didn’t play as well on defense but also played bad offensively.”
On Sunday, UCLA (19-2) managed to bounce back, beating Santa Clara 16-2 and playing an exhibition game against West Valley later that day.
The UCLA freshmen had a huge game, as all five players scored, accounting for nine of the 16 goals against Santa Clara.
Freshman center Gordon Marshall recorded a third of the freshmen’s goals, completing a hat trick with three straight goals in the fourth quarter.
Barabino was the only other Bruin to score a hat trick this weekend.
“We have to figure some things out after our loss against Stanford,” Barabino said. “We have to get together and have a really good week of practice.”