MALIBU “”mdash; There was no celebration. There was only
dejection, anger and bitterness.
The UCLA men’s water polo team didn’t look like a
team that had scored a game-winning goal with 30 seconds left,
pulling off a fourth-quarter comeback, which normally is cause for
a jubilant celebration.
Instead, the Bruins’ 7-6 win at Pepperdine on Sunday left
the team mad at itself. Sure they extended their winning streak to
11 matches, but not in the fashion they expected.
“We looked slow and sluggish out there,” UCLA coach
Adam Krikorian said. “We weren’t communicating with
each other. Our counter-attack defense was asleep. The team
wasn’t focused.”
The No. 1 Bruins (16-2, 3-0 MPSF) entered the match as huge
favorites, while the Waves (9-10, 1-3) were ranked No. 11 and had
lost to No. 2 Stanford 12-3 a day earlier.
“We underestimated them,” senior attacker Peter
Belden said. “We didn’t come out to play.”
The score was tied at 2-2 after a poorly played first quarter,
with both teams missing scoring opportunities.
“You could tell from the onset that the starters
didn’t show up,” Krikorian said.
UCLA appeared to dominate the second quarter, scoring three
goals and taking a 5-2 lead into halftime.
But then the match started to unravel for the Bruins.
Pepperdine scored three goals in the first four minutes of the
third quarter, and all of them could be attributed to a mental
breakdown of some kind by the Bruins.
“We did a poor job of putting the nail in the
coffin,” Krikorian said. “We should’ve been up by
more.”
The Waves’ Matt Hahn opened the second-half scoring on a
shot from several meters out with a clear, direct line to an open
net. The second goal came at the very last second of the shot
clock. And the third came after a rare Brett Ormsby turnover,
setting up a Pepperdine breakaway.
“I question whether we respect every single opponent we
play,” Krikorian said. “In this conference and this
time of year, we have to respect every team we play. Especially
when you’re No. 1. Everyone’s going to try their best
to beat you.”
Pepperdine went up early in the fourth quarter, scoring with
5:57 left in the match. But Michael March’s second goal of
the match would tie it for the Bruins at 6-6 with only 3:11
left.
With 49 seconds left, UCLA was awarded a 6-on-5 situation,
helping set up senior attacker Albert Garcia’s second goal of
the match to finally give the Bruins the lead for good.
“We had to dig ourselves out of the big hole we created
for ourselves,” senior attacker Peter Belden said.
Pepperdine did have one last try to tie the game up with two
shots on its final possession ““ one was tipped out of bounds
by goalie Joseph Axelrad and the final lob shot at the last second
hit the top of the upper goalpost.
Axelrad was only credited with four saves for the match, but all
of them seemed to come in situations that Pepperdine easily could
have scored.
Logan Powell, David Pietsch and Ormsby accounted for the other
three Bruin goals, but the seven-goal total fell short of
Krikorian’s expectations.
Krikorian said his team should have scored anywhere from 12-14
goals and allowed only three or four.
He and Belden also hinted that UCLA may have been looking ahead
to its next opponent, Stanford, who the Bruins play on
Saturday.