With any luck, the Rose Bowl will host two UCLA victories on its grounds Saturday.
Unbeknownst to many of the fans who will be arriving to watch UCLA football take on Notre Dame, a second team of Bruins may have already taken home a victory for UCLA.
For the first time this season, the No. 3 men’s water polo team will play a home game at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center, rather than at their usual home in Sunset Recreation Center.
The Bruins will be taking on the No. 20 Brown Bears in what will be the first meeting between the two schools.
“It is the first time we’ve played them and we’ve never seen them play in the tournaments,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “I don’t really know that much about them, which can be a scary thing, going into it blindfolded and seeing as you go.”
Brown finished in fifth place at the 2006 Eastern Championship and currently has a record of 10-7. The Bears will bring a first-year coach and a large team to Los Angeles, as well as a significant amount of experience, having retained roughly 80 percent of their scoring from last season.
However, for now the Brown game is neither the most immediate nor most important game ahead for the Bruins. That will come Friday evening when they travel south to Irvine to take on the No. 6 UC Irvine Anteaters in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference match.
The Bruins last played the Anteaters on Sept. 22 in a nonconference game at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center. While the Bruins were finally able to come out on top, 12-11 in overtime, Krikorian wasn’t particularly pleased with his team’s play in the game.
“I wasn’t happy with the way we executed in the first quarter, and then we didn’t handle their pressure very well,” Krikorian said of the Irvine win. “They got some momentum back in the third quarter and we couldn’t stop the bleeding at all. We have to do a better job of responding in those situations.”
That is what the Bruins plan to do. In their practices since Sunday’s conference loss to No. 4 Stanford, the team has tried to address some of the issues that plagued them against the Anteaters, most notably their interior defense, which allowed seven goals to UCI senior center Tim Hutten.
“We gave up seven goals to one guy, that’s a big problem,” Krikorian said. “Five of those came out of the center position and you never want to give up any goals out of the center position. I think all around we need to do a better job and commit to the defensive side of the game again.”
Hutten currently leads the MPSF with an average of 4.11 goals per game. Sophomore attacker Kevin Kuga also reiterated the need to be concerned with Hutten and Irvine’s other key players.
“They (have) a few really talented guys and all we have to do is concentrate on them,” Kuga said. “If we do that and shut down their main players, I think we’ll be fine. We can’t let them get the easy goals at the two meters, and have to force them to make some six-on-five opportunities. Our six-on-five (defense) is really good.”
Although there is some anxiety surrounding Friday’s game against Irvine, the Bruins are looking forward to Saturday afternoon.
“It’s an exciting day for our program as a whole,” Krikorian said. “We have the water polo game, then our men’s and women’s teams are having a big tailgate before the game. So its going to be a fun day and hopefully we’ll get some people out there watching and supporting us.”
WOMEN TO BE HONORED: Also at the Rose Bowl this weekend will be the 2007 women’s water polo team. The team will be honored for its contribution to UCLA’s 100 national NCAA team titles at half time during the football game. The second-ranked Bruins defeated the third-ranked Stanford Cardinal 5-4 in the championship game last May to take home their third straight national title and the 100th team title for UCLA.