The weekend results for the No. 3 UCLA men’s water polo team went just as planned, but the team’s performance was not exactly perfect.
UCLA netted three victories in its last games in its home pool at the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center, but its defense still struggled, surrendering a total of 23 goals.
The Bruins (14-5, 4-2 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) began their busy weekend Friday afternoon playing host to No. 9 UC Irvine.
Having previously beaten the Anteaters in their season opener 10-4, the Bruins 12-10 victory proved to be a much closer contest.
“We weren’t as sharp as we needed to be, despite the win,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “Our five-man defense could have been much better. They (UCI) did a great job executing, and I think that’s a big reason the game was as close as it was.”
The Bruins jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first quarter off of goals from redshirt junior Scott Swanson and redshirt sophomore Jacob Murphy. UCI’s Greg Enloe answered with two goals to knot the score. Swanson would score again before the quarter was out, along with redshirt senior Krsto Sbutega. Both Swanson and Sbutega, along with sophomore Ben Hohl, would each score three goals in the game.
The fast-paced game stayed close heading into halftime with UCLA up 8-6.
“When we came back in the second half, after we’d had time to talk we really pulled it together as a team,” Hohl said. “Everyone was working really well together in the second half, setting each other up for goals and counterattacks.”
Although Krikorian felt the defense was not up to where it should have been, UCLA was able to hold UCI’s top scorer, Brandon Johnson, to just two goals. He entered the game with 53 goals on the season, which ranked second in the MPSF.
UCLA continued the weekend with a non-conference game against Concordia University on Saturday. The Bruins easily handed the visiting Eagles a 17-5 loss with 11 Bruins adding points to the total. Six Bruins had a multi-goal day.
“We were pretty effective offensively, which I expected,” Krikorian said.
The Bruins rounded out the weekend with an 11-8 victory over No. 8 UC San Diego.
Sbutega once again led the Bruins with three goals, with Hohl and junior Scott Davidson adding two a piece.
Although the Bruins were able to open up the scoring and led the Tritons the whole game, Krikorian was once again concerned about defense.
“I felt like it was pretty similar to Friday,” Krikorian said. “We need to do better defensively. We were a little out to lunch and kind of missing some assignments on occasion.”
Sbutega echoed a very similar view.
“Today our defense was something that wasn’t great,” Sbutega said. “We really needed to get back to hard defense and be a little quicker. If we go into the conference tournament letting in seven or eight goals against tough teams, I don’t think we are going to be able to win it.”
The Bruins will return to action Saturday against No. 7 UC Santa Barbara. With only two weeks left in the regular season, UCLA will attempt to finish their schedule strong and tighten up its defense for the postseason.
“We are going to spend a lot of time on our defense, all areas of our defense: our transition defense, our halfcourt defense, and our five-man defense,” Krikorian said. “As the season wears on athletes have a tendency to forget about the small things, the fundamentals that are necessary to execute, and we need to get back to those things and start emphasizing them.”