W. polo: Team in must-win weekend

Lo and behold, the last game of the regular season for the UCLA
women’s water polo team is against archnemisis Stanford.

Assuming the Bruins can get past conference light-weight San
Jose State on Saturday, just about everything will hinge on the
outcome of Sunday’s contest with the Cardinal.

“It’s going to be key for us to be calm, composed
and ready to play,” said freshman goalie Emily Feher.
“We’ve done all we can physically. It’s going to
be about getting ready to play when the time comes.”

What hangs in the balance for UCLA this weekend at Sunset
Recreation Center is the No. 2 seeding in the MPSF conference
tournament, as well as a possible NCAA bid.

The No. 3 Bruins (18-3, 8-1 MPSF) will need to defeat both the
No. 11 San Jose State Spartans (13-13, 3-5) and second-ranked
Stanford in order to edge past the Cardinal in postseason
positioning.

For coach Adam Krikorian, the inability to consistently defeat
Stanford (16-3, 8-1) may be the only blemish on his coaching
resume.

But Krikorian and the Bruins still remain undaunted.

“It’s been the best rivalry in water polo the last
6, 7 years,” Krikorian said. “They’ve certainly
given us problems over the years. We just hope we’ll get them
this time.”

The annals of water polo show how lopsided the results have been
when Stanford has faced the Bruins. In the last 21 meetings, UCLA
has managed to pull off just eight victories.

The misleading factor in this stat is that the Bruins have had
the upper hand in the postseason.

In the last five years, the Bruins have captured four NCAA
titles. During that stretch, UCLA has successfully defeated
Stanford in two out of the last three NCAA championships.

“They can beat us all they want; we (still) felt confident
going into 2003, 2002 and even 2001, when we lost four times to
Stanford in the regular season,” Krikorian said. “In
the end, it’s all about bringing home the championship.

“I’ll take all the losses in the world in the
regular season if I can have that one NCAA Championship. I’ll
take that in a heartbeat.”

For Feher, the reigning MPSF Player of the Week, the
competitiveness and rivalry between UCLA and Stanford are becoming
more lucid.

“It’s going to be a tough game no matter what, in
any sport,” Feher said. “They’re going to play
smart, and we’ll have to play with a lot of mental
toughness.”

The mental toughness — or lack thereof ““ of which Feher
speaks was the determining factor in the Bruins’ last matchup
with the Cardinal.

On Feb. 29, UCLA dropped a 6-5 decision in the semifinals of the
Gaucho Tournament in Santa Barbara, despite leading the entire way
and controlling the tempo of the match. The Bruins failed to
execute in the final period, during which they were held scoreless
and gave up two goals to Stanford.

“We should’ve won that game,” Feher said.
“It’s something that I don’t usually say. But the
way we came out, if we stayed at the level we were playing at, the
game would’ve been ours.”

If the Bruins can do it, the ramifications go beyond mere
placement in the conference tournament and possibly the NCAA
tournament.

For UCLA, beating Stanford is a moral victory in itself.

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