Barely recuperated from its last road trip, the UCLA men’s
water polo team is off again this weekend, only this time the
Bruins will still be able to enjoy the Southern California
sunshine.
The Bruins travel down the Pacific Coast Highway to face the No.
9 Pepperdine Waves on Saturday at noon then venture up the 101 to
play the No. 6 UCSB Gauchos at the same time on Sunday.
Coming back from a trip to Northern California, the third-ranked
Bruins have been working to learn from their disappointing loss to
the second-ranked California Bears.
“(The Cal game was) disappointing as a team,” junior
Matthew Jacobs said. “Obviously you always want to win and
expect to win.”
It seemed to be a general agreement that what is going to be
instrumental in the team’s performance this weekend is
heart.
“I just need to see more of a killer instinct from this
team,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “We’re not too
far off, but at the same time we’re lacking what championship
teams have, and that’s a killer instinct. We’ve had it
sometimes, but not the past couple of weeks.”
Junior Justin Johnson, who scored three goals last weekend in
Northern California, agrees.
“We need to have more passion than this,” Johnson
said. “There were a lot of times where it seemed that (Cal)
wanted to win more than we did.”
Although the competition this weekend may not compare to that of
the Bears, the Bruins are expecting a tough weekend of play ““
especially from Santa Barbara, which typically generates a large
crowd of supporters and is coming off a weekend of two big wins
against UC Irvine and Long Beach State.
In the previous meeting between the two teams last season, the
Bruins had no problem fending off the Gauchos, beating them 8-2 and
8-3.
“They’re both threatening opponents. I’d say
Santa Barbara is having a little bit better year, but both teams
get very excited to play at home,” Krikorian said.
“That’s another challenge, being constantly on the
road, but Santa Barbara has done a really nice job this year, so
we’ll expect a tough game there.”
Even with more of their efforts focused on a win at Santa
Barbara, the Bruins do not plan to overlook the Waves in Malibu.
Although they have not played Pepperdine yet this year, the Bruins
dominated in each of the teams’ two meetings last year.
“It’s important not to overlook teams,” Jacobs
said. “With Santa Barbara and Pepperdine, it’s easier
to overlook them.”
And overlook them they have not.
“We plan to watch a little video, talk about both the
teams and their tendencies and what they like to do,”
Krikorian said.
“Most of this week is more about us concentrating on what
we need to do to get better,” he said.
With the ever-looming tournaments in the distance, every game
counts ““ especially since the team needs to win the MPSF
conference tournament outright if it wants to reach the NCAA
Tournament in December.
“One of the goals for the rest of the season is to go 4-0
for the last four games, and to just get the best possible
conference seed that we can,” Krikorian said.
“Obviously, two wins this weekend would help us do
that.”