With their first loss of the season looming over them and the seconds ticking away on the game clock, the Bruins showed the kind of composure known only to champions.
Last Sunday, in the championship match of the UC Irvine Invitational, top-ranked UCLA women’s water polo pulled out a thrilling come-from-behind victory against No. 2 Stanford in sudden death overtime. The win was even more impressive because it was the culmination of a marathon stretch for the Bruins, who won each of the 11 road games they played over the last three weekends.
Though the Bruins will be the first to tell you that their play is not flawless, the team demonstrates its desire to win and ability to stay focused on the task at hand.
That ability will be put to the test this weekend when UCLA travels to UC Santa Barbara to play a team that has lost eight straight. For the first time in a month, the Bruins will have a week to worry about only a single match, which is scheduled for noon on Saturday. Though this is not a game the Bruins necessarily circled on their schedule, it would be a sure bet to say that UCSB has its sights set on a season-changing upset.
“I think Santa Barbara is going to come out hard against us,” senior Courtney Mathewson said. “There are not a lot of teams that are going to roll over to anyone this year.”
“I guess they’ve lost eight in a row, but I watched them play against Cal, and they have some talented players,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “Anytime you’re playing on the road, you’ve got to be a little wary. So we’ll come in ready to go, and there’s a lot we need to work on.”
With a full week of practices, the Bruins will focus on those aspects of their game that allowed Stanford to put them up against the ropes last week.
“Our offense was pretty weak,” Mathewson said. “We made their goalie look really good by putting up a lot of bad shots.”
The Bruins were trailing Stanford with less than a minute to play in the second overtime when UCLA played its trump card.
“The difference in the game for us was we were just mentally tough,” Krikorian said of the Bruins’ end-game performance.
When the game was on the line, two of the team’s senior leaders stepped up to squash the hopes of an upset. Trailing by one with 46 seconds left on the clock, Jillian Kraus scored a goal to extend the game into the sudden-victory period. That’s when Gabrielle Domanic accepted the role of hero with her game-winning score.
“I think that shows a lot about our team, to be able to come back from that loss of momentum, to come back and win in sudden death,” Krikorian said. “It showed a lot of toughness on our part, and that’s what I’m most proud of.”
UCLA has been sitting atop the national rankings all year, but the Bruins do not feel the pressure.
“These girls are so competitive,” Krikorian said. “They just want to win every time they play. And when you have a team that’s that competitive, you don’t even think about winning or losing. You just think about winning certain battles and playing in the now.”