Coach Adam Wright set two main goals for UCLA men’s water polo before its upcoming games. The first is to get healthy.
“We’ve got some guys out, whether it’s sickness, or just a little banged up where they got to keep going,” Wright said.
Of these guys, junior attacker Daniel Lenhart will be out for at least a few more weeks after rupturing his spleen in an earlier game.
Second, Wright said the team needs to take some time to regroup.
The No. 2 ranked UCLA team went through what it noted as a difficult period in the past few weeks, facing the likes of No. 1 USC, No. 4 Stanford and No. 3 University of the Pacific, often playing multiple games on the same day.
Wright said that he is especially pleased to finally have a full week of practice, something the team hasn’t had for a few weeks. After the SoCal Invitational tournament, which ended Oct. 13, the team did not practice Oct. 14 before flying to Stanford on Oct. 18 . And after another Sunday game, this time Oct. 20 against Santa Clara, UCLA faced UC Irvine on Oct. 25.
This made for game-dominated weeks that left little time for practice.
“We just went through a tough stretch, whether it’s SoCal to Stanford to UOP to Cal, and now our next game is Long Beach,” Wright said. “So it’ll be nice to really get back and concentrate.”
As far as areas of concentration, the players don’t have many beyond the usual routine. The Bruins had success against the Golden Bears and the Eagles the past weekend and said they were proud of their performances. Redshirt junior utility Cristiano Mirarchi, for example, said that in spite of small kinks, he was pleased with UCLA’s performance and “great” communication.
“There were definitely a few instances we could have communicated a little more,” Mirarchi said. “There’s definitely room for improvement, but I thought (communication) was pretty good.”
But after giving up 11 goals to Concordia, only the third game this season that UCLA has given up more than eight points to another team, the Bruins said that defense will be a talking point. For freshman attacker Ryder Roberts, defense is also one of his personal goals.
“I need to be working on my defense every day because I’m a smaller guy and teams are going to be going after me,” Roberts said. “If I lock down defense it’s just going to benefit the rest of our team.”
And beyond working on their transition game and 6-on-5 power plays, which players said were strong against Cal and Stanford, UCLA ultimately aims to devote this week to getting back in stride.
“We’re gonna keep working, increase the work and get ready for the conference games,” Mirarchi said.