Thursday, October 23, 1997
UCLA, Cal go head-to-head for shot at title
PREVIEW: Entering last month, Bruins look to drown Bears,
Tigers
By Arin Aboulian
Daily Bruin Contributor
The UCLA men’s water polo team will be heading into two
extremely critical games this weekend.
No. 2 California and No. 8 Pacific will be coming to Southern
California to face the Bruins in two conference games that have
NCAA play-off implications.
The Bruins will be looking to increase their momentum as they
enter the last month of the season after finishing fifth in the
Northern California Tournament.
These two games will be a test of survival for a Bruin team that
has struggled severely in the season, but is beginning to come
together as a unit.
The Bruins (9-6 overall, 2-1 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation)
will face the Bears (13-4 overall, 4-1 MPSF) at the Rose Bowl
Aquatics Center Saturday at 10:30 a.m. before the football game, in
what promises to be an exciting and hard-fought struggle between
the two rivals.
Each team has one loss in the conference, and is in a must-win
situations in order to have a shot at the conference title.
The Bears, who finished fourth in the Northern California
Tourney, will face UC Irvine on Friday before facing the Bruins
Saturday morning.
The next game for the Bruins this weekend will be against
University of Pacific (5-7 overall, 1-3 MPSF), who are led by
junior driver Roman Yegiyants with 22 goals. The Tigers come in
with upset on their minds as they will be looking for revenge for
the 11-9 loss to UCLA last weekend.
The Bruins had a strong showing at the Northern California
Tourney. They won three of their four matches, with their only loss
coming to cross-town rivals and eventual winners of the tournament,
USC.
Unlike the last embarrassing showing the Bruins had against the
Trojans about three weeks ago, this was a hard-fought game that
went into overtime.
The victories came over No. 5-ranked UC Irvine, Long Beach State
and University of Pacific. The most important victory came against
UC Irvine, who had previously handed two losses to the Bruins.
The Bruins’ last conference game will be against UC Irvine on
Nov. 15. UCLA hopes to gain the upper hand in the season series by
winning their last two meetings.
Led by freshmen Sean Kern and Adam Wright, and with the steady
contributions of seniors Steve Covec and Brett Stern, the Bruins
will be looking to add two more victories to their conference total
and be in strong contention for either the conference title or the
at-large bid at the end of the season.