All week long, UCLA coach Adam Krikorian reiterated that the
Bruins needed to wait for this weekend to get an indication of
where they stand.
The entire water polo community had been proclaiming that this
season’s team may be the best women’s water polo squad
ever assembled. Nevertheless, the top-ranked Bruins were hesitant
to even murmur those words.
And after this weekend’s Stanford Invitational, where UCLA
knocked off Stanford and then defending NCAA champion USC in the
championship game, 8-6, the Bruins realized that the gap between
them and their opponents isn’t as wide as others had
thought.
“It just shows that we’re not invincible,”
sophomore goalie Emily Feher said. “People have been saying
even from the beginning that no one is going to beat us and
that’s it’s not even going to be close, so this weekend
helped us put things in perspective.”
In the past four years that the Stanford Invitational has been
held, UCLA has fallen each and every time in the championship game,
getting outscored 32-17 over that stretch. Three of those losses
came to Stanford and last year’s came at the hands of
USC.
However this year’s team, which currently boasts four
Olympians, was able to squeak by for the title. UCLA (7-0) got its
reality check before the finals, barely edging the Cardinal by a
sole goal, 6-5. Krikorian expressed that he was impressed by the
teams’ aggressiveness, but was frustrated by the lack of
fundamentals that the team showed, which ultimately led to how
closely contested the games ended.
“We’re going to realize this year why every team is
going to get excited to play us,” Krikorian said. “If
we don’t bring it, if we’re not ready to play with
enthusiasm and energy we’re going to have a tough
game.”
Despite the close final scores, the Bruins never trailed in any
of their four games this tournament. Freshman Brittany Rowe led
UCLA over the weekend with seven goals and junior Thalia Munro
collected six.
The Bruins were able to capture their first win in Stanford
against the Cardinal since the 2001 NCAA championship, and
Krikorian knows that his team didn’t play to its full
potential. They will have a few more shots at both the Trojans and
Cardinal before the year will be over.
“We’re happy to get the win,” Krikorian said.
“We played better in the final game than in three previous
games. That’s what I’m happy with. But we have a lot of
room to get better.”
They’ll have plenty more chances to demonstrate their
improvement in the future. The Bruins could potentially face
Stanford and USC four more times by the end of the season.