Saturday, at noon, the UCLA men’s water polo team will
face off against USC at McDonald’s Swim Stadium.
The Lexus Gauntlet rivalry match against USC (16-0, 3-0 MPSF)
has the potential to be pivotal in both team’s water polo
seasons. A win would put the Bruins (9-3, 1-0 MPSF) atop the
conference rankings and send USC a step back, snapping the
Trojans’ 34-game win streak.
Last season the Trojans traveled to UCLA and handed the Bruins
their first home-game loss in 20 matches. Although breaking the win
streak is not the Bruins’ main focus, it would be an added
bonus to the victory.
“I don’t really care about breaking their streak. I
am more interested in starting our own,” sophomore Krsto
Sbutega said. “Though breaking their streak would be nice
because they broke ours here at home.”
However, the task of upsetting USC will be far from easy. The
top-ranked Trojans have proven themselves to be worthy of their No.
1 ranking by capturing both the Northern California and Southern
California tournament titles this season. The Bruins finished third
in both tournaments, yet it has been more than a month since the
No. 3 Bruins have faced the Trojans in the water. With rivalry and
pride at stake, anything can happen.
“Just to beat ‘SC is an awesome feeling whether they
are having a terrible season or they are undefeated,” coach
Adam Krikorian said. “That’s the great thing about the
rivalry: It doesn’t matter. I know everyone has heard this
cliche before, but you do, you do throw everything else out the
window.”
The Bruin team has the capacity to be on the same level with the
Trojans, but will need to focus and bring together elements of play
that have, at times, been missing entirely.
“We are going to need to play with some passion and energy
and at the same time with a lot of intelligence (to win),”
Krikorian said. “We haven’t been able to mix those. We
have played with a lot of passion and energy at times, but then we
lack the intelligence. Then we’ll play pretty intelligent,
but in this sport that can only take you so far. You need
both.”
At times ““ for example, against UC San Diego this past
weekend ““ the elements seemed to all be in place. But that
match followed a disappointing loss to Cal where the element of
passion seemed to be nonexistent. The Bruins know they cannot
afford to have any key elements missing if they want to have a shot
at upsetting the deep Trojan team.
“We need to focus on being consistent,” Sbutega
said. “I think during the season we have had some good games
and some bad games. I still don’t think we have played any
great games. We need to play consistent throughout the game in
order to have a great game.”
Sbutega leads the way for the Bruins offensively as he has
tallied 17 goals on the season. The redshirt sophomore from
Yugoslavia has had multiple two-, three- and four-goal games.
“I think we are capable of being on their level,”
Sbutega said. “It’s definitely going to be a close
game; everything is going to come down to the last two or three
minutes, maybe overtime.”
With a prediction like that, it may be worth the free
admission.