In the span of a couple of minutes, the UCLA men’s water
polo team lost a 17-game winning streak and the top seed for the
NCAA Tournament.
But it doesn’t really matter right now.
Despite their 7-6 loss to No. 2 Stanford in the finals of the
MPSF Tournament, the Bruins still qualified for the NCAA
Tournament, where they will face Princeton in the first round on
Friday.
“It really doesn’t matter where we’re
seeded,” Krikorian said. “We made the NCAAs. Both LMU
and Princeton are quality teams.
“We’re just going to try to do well and take
advantage of our opportunity to advance to the
championship.”
The motivation to advance to the finals will be plenty,
particularly since a rematch against Stanford likely awaits.
Sunday’s game against the Cardinal, like the two
teams’ previous meetings, was closely contested throughout.
Neither team had more than a one-goal edge at any point. With 3:27
to go in the fourth quarter, Stanford star Tony Azevedo scored on a
power play that put Stanford ahead for good, 7-6.
“Stanford played a lot better than last time (a 7-4 UCLA
victory),” Krikorian said.
“I don’t know whether it was the home crowd, the
fact that it was the conference championship, or just that we beat
them last time.”
Azevedo, who represented Stanford on the U.S. Olympic team, led
all scorers with three goals on the day. UCLA senior drivers Brett
Ormsby, an Olympian, and Albert Garcia each scored two goals for
the Bruins, but neither could find the net in the last few minutes
of play.
“We could have executed much better offensively and in
extra man situations,” Krikorian said. “We were only 3
for 9 in extra man situations, which is below our average, and we
did not execute well coming out of timeouts.”
The Bruins had decent opportunities late in the game, but could
not score due to the play of Stanford goalie Chad Taylor. Taylor
had four of his eight saves in the final period, preventing the
Bruins from tying the score at the end.
Bruin goalie Joe Axelrad was equally effective, collecting six
of his game high 13 saves in the fourth quarter. A key save on a
Stanford breakaway with two minutes left kept UCLA in the game at
the end.
“Joe played great,” Krikorian said. “He made
big-time saves and basically did what he’s done all this
year.”
The Bruins had been accused this year of occasionally looking
past lesser opponents, but they were not guilty of that in the
first two rounds of the MPSF Tournament.
Against UC Santa Barbara in the first round on Friday, the
Bruins held the Gauchos scoreless until the third quarter, and
eventually triumphed in a 6-1 victory.
On Saturday, UCLA defeated UC Irvine 10-6 behind even more
stellar play from the defense and Axelrad, who recorded 14 saves in
that game.
“We performed pretty well, especially in the first two
games,” Krikorian said. “We did a really nice job
defensively, which is a good sign.”
Though losing out on the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament to
the Cardinal, the Bruins are still in good position as the second
seed.
Princeton, making just its second trip to the tournament and
first since 1992, has gone 0-3 against MPSF teams this year.
The Tigers, led by attacker John Stover, beat St. Francis 3-2 in
the Eastern Championships to advance to the NCAA Tournament.