On the surface, it may seem counterintuitive to let your team
rest the week it goes to the NCAA Championships. But when UCLA
water polo coach Adam Krikorian, who is known for his stress on
conditioning, said he is letting his team rest this week, he
didn’t exactly give the team the week off ““ his team
has still practiced all week long before it leaves for Stanford
tonight. “Our practices aren’t as strenuous, since
there’s no conditioning this week,” Krikorian said.
“In order to compete at the highest level, you have to rest
up a bit. We’re working on the mental more than the
physical.” Krikorian and several players pointed out that
they have been preparing for the NCAA Championships more than just
this week, as they started seriously anticipating this weekend over
a month ago. “We were doing so well,” Krikorian said.
“We had a leg up on everyone, we started looking towards Dec.
4 without losing focus on any of our next opponents.” This
week Krikorian has tried to stress more of the mental aspects of
the game, including game situations and 6-on-5 situations.
“We’ve been doing a lot of fine-tuning and going over
stuff that has come up in the past,” UCLA goalkeeper Joseph
Axelrad said. Among the reoccurring parts of the game the team has
been working on are the 6-on-5 situations. “We need to do
better than 3-for-9,” Krikorian said about how his team did
in extra-man situations in UCLA’s latest game against
Stanford. Psychologically, getting ready for the NCAA Championships
may be easier than for any other game. “It’s a lot
easier now that we know we’re in,” senior attacker
Brett Ormsby said. “We had worked hard all year just to get
here, and now that we’re here, we can concentrate on what we
need to do to get ready for the weekend.”
GAME TIMES CHANGED: The game times for the NCAA
Semifinals on Saturday were switched. UCLA will now play Princeton
at 5 p.m. instead of the originally scheduled 3:30 p.m. Stanford
will now play Loyola Marymount at 3:30 p.m. Sunday’s
championship is still at 2 p.m., and the consolation game is still
at 12:30 p.m.
ALL-CONFERENCE: The Mountain Pacific Sports
Federation announced its all-conference teams on Wednesday, and six
Bruins made the list. Axelrad and Ormsby received first-team
homors, junior center defender Michael March was named the
conference’s second team, senior attacker Albert Garcia was
named to the third team, and seniors Ted Peck and Josh Hewko were
given honorable mentions.
ALUMNUS HONORED: On Friday, former UCLA water
polo player Dr. James Puffer will receive the 2004 Duke Paoa
Kahanamoku Award, which is presented annually by USA Water Polo to
a former player for his or her achievements in the fields of
science, business, government, education, entertainment or the
arts. Puffer played at UCLA from 1969-71 and is one of the more
recognized names in sports medicine nationwide, including being a
founding member of the American Medical Society for Sports
Medicine.