The Bruins head south this weekend to face some familiar foes in the UC Irvine Invitational Tournament.
In their first game on Saturday morning, No. 1 UCLA (13-0, 3-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) will once again meet No. 16 Cal State Northridge (3-4, 0-1), whom the Bruins defeated last weekend 10-5. Despite the large margin of victory, the Bruins struggled at times in that game, and are looking forward to having another shot at the Matadors.
“We’re excited to play them again,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “We didn’t play too well last time, they did some things that frustrated us a little bit and it will be nice to have the opportunity to play against a team that gave us some problems. Hopefully we can do a little bit better this time around.”
Senior Kamaile Crowell also recognized this weekend’s tournament as a chance for the team to atone for three days of sloppy play last weekend.
“I think it’s a chance to redeem ourselves,” Crowell said. “We probably didn’t play the best that we could have. … I think that we had a problem with our balance in the water this past weekend. Hopefully we can work that out and play much better offense and defense.”
The Bruins have spent the past week in practice working to rectify the afflictions that have plagued them recently.
“Intensity was better overall at today’s practice, which was not something we had in practices leading up to last weekend’s games,” Krikorian said. “We need to practice well, to play well, and those are the things that I’m telling the team right now.”
The Bruins are also still in the process of adapting their large freshman class to the many juniors and seniors on the team. Freshman Kelly Easterday sees that adjustment period as something the Bruins will need to continue to work through.
“It’s just mostly that we haven’t been playing so much as a unit,” Easterday said. “We have a lot of new freshmen so there’s kind of a divide still between the freshmen and the seniors. So we’re working a lot to integrate the team and help that situation and just working on communication and balance to spread our offense out throughout the pool.”
However, Easterday is optimistic that that problem will be resolved with time.
“It was difficult coming in as a freshman, seeing all those seniors who are so good,” Easterday said.
“But more and more as you get to know them as people, and not just as those great water polo players, it gets much easier.”
If UCLA wins the game against Cal State Northridge, they will go on to play the victor of the matchup between No. 8 Arizona State and No. 9 Loyola Marymount, both of whom the Bruins have already met and defeated this season. Nevertheless, Krikorian refuses to underestimate the threat each school poses to his team’s undefeated record.
“They both gave us some trouble at times, and I think they are both very talented teams,” Krikorian said.
“ASU is a team that beat USC a week ago by two goals. They’re big and strong. LMU is a lot quicker, a little smaller. They are two very different teams, and if we get to that point I think either one of those teams will be a challenge.”
With tough lessons learned and problems in the process of being corrected, the Bruins are looking forward to the tournament this weekend, and to putting the struggles of the past weekend behind them.