For the first time in years, the UCLA women’s water polo team finds itself squarely on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament field. A loss to Hawai’i today, and the quest for the sixth straight championship might be cut off prematurely.
The fifth-seeded Bruins (17-7, 4-3 MPSF) face off against the four seed, fellow bubble team Hawai’i (16-7, 4-3), today in the quarterfinals of the MPSF Tournament, which will be held at Spieker Aquatics Center for the very first time. The winner will get to play another day and improve its NCAA Tournament resume, while the loser could be left on the outside looking in.
The Bruins and Rainbow Wahine have faced off in two hard-fought battles this year that both came down to the final minutes. In their first meeting on Feb. 6 at the Stanford Invitational, UCLA raced out to an early lead and held on to win 9-8. The second matchup between the teams took much longer to decide, with Hawai’i putting in a sudden-death goal in the sixth overtime to win 9-8 in Honolulu.
Coach Brandon Brooks acknowledged that Hawai’i is a stronger team than the Bruins have seen in recent years.
“They’re talented, they’re stronger, I think they’re faster than they’ve been in past years,” he said. “They’ve got good shooters and good size.”
UCLA last missed the NCAA Tournament in 2004, the only time since the NCAA made women’s water polo a sport in 2001.
To avoid a repeat of that performance, they will definitely have to get past Hawai’i.
“We’ve got to start, as the cliché goes, one game at a time,” Brooks said. “We’ve got to start well on Friday. Bottom line: We need to play good water polo this weekend, and the chips will fall as they may.”
Don’t count the Bruins out of it just yet, though. After posting just a 5-2 record in conference play and a third-place finish in the MPSF Tournament last year, the team went on to win the NCAA Tournament as an at-large selection. The players still have some work to do if they want to repeat that performance this year.
“We need to get big efforts out of our players that can score a lot,” Brooks said. “We’ve struggled at times putting goals on the board, so we need to get good center play, and we need to get good goalie play. But I think we’re coming along as a team. … Friday, we need to play our game the whole time. We need to play the full 32 minutes ““ and longer if it takes ““ to do what we need to do and just execute the small things: passing well, shooting well. It’s the end of the year and it’s time to play good water polo.”
Today’s Other Quarterfinal Games at the Spieker Aquatics Center
(2) USC v. (7) SDSU, 10 a.m.
(3) Cal v. (6) SJSU, 11:30 a.m.
(1) Stanford v. (8) ASU, 1:30 p.m.