The Bruins’ defense kept their season alive.
Then-No. 4 seed UCLA men’s water polo’s (22-4) defensive performances overshadowed its offensive miscues, winning two of its three games at the MPSF championship and earning the No. 3 seed in the NCAA championship.
Over the regular season, the Bruins converted about 45 percent of their 6-on-5 chances. UCLA went 2-of-11 on power play opportunities in its semifinal loss against No. 1 seed Stanford (20-2) and 0-of-4 in its third-place win over No. 2 seed USC (28-3), combining for just 13 percent.
The Bruins averaged 12.9 goals during the regular season and 9.4 against Big Four teams, but put up seven against both Stanford and USC. The Bruins shot the ball 21 and 28 times, respectively.
With the increase in shots, coach Adam Wright said the intensity picked up against USC and helped the team’s defensive pressure.
“We were moving better,” Wright said. “Our centers were much better (against USC), and when you have a center presence that absolutely changes the dynamics of your attack.”
Besides the 18-1 beatdown over Penn State Behrend (5-18) in the quarterfinals, the Bruins gave up nine and four goals to Stanford and USC, respectively.
Sophomore center Quinten Osborne said Wright positions the team for defensive success in any scenario.
“(Wright) gives us the tools to defend any team no matter where or what the situation,” Osborne said.
The Bruins averaged 6.9 goals allowed on the season – good for second best in the country.
Senior attacker Austin Rone said redshirt junior goalie Alex Wolf’s standout play is what forced opponents to struggle offensively.
“When they had to go through our defense, they struggled, which is a testament to Wolf’s work in the cage (against USC),” Rone said. “He was pretty lights out (against the Trojans), so a lot of credit goes to him.”
Wolf is averaging 10.6 saves per game and a nation-leading 6.9 goals against per game. The redshirt junior – who was the only Bruin named first team All-MPSF – collected 14 and 13 saves against Stanford and USC, respectively.
Many of those saves this weekend came on breakaways, on which Wright said Wolf wasn’t expected to make the stops.
“It’s not easy to make one-on-nobody saves once (and Wolf is) doing it time and time again,” Wright said. “We’ve got to clean that up because we can’t count on Wolf to make one-on-nobody saves like that all the time.”
The Bruins will have the opportunity in the NCAA championship to get their offense up to speed with their defense against the winner of No. 7 seed Princeton (19-10) and No. 6 seed George Washington (22-6) on Saturday at Stanford.