Tuesday, March 3, 1998
Weekend ends on losing note as Cal wins in sudden death
Bruins dominant early on but suffer defeat in overtime
By Steve Kim
Daily Bruin Staff
When a team wins consistently, like the UCLA women’s water polo
team does, it’s sometimes bigger news when they don’t win. That is
exactly what happened at the UC Santa Barbara Tournament, where
they were edged out by UC Berkeley in the final game by a score of
9-8.
The Bruins were dominant in the preliminary and semi-final
games. UCLA defeated Occidental 20-0, and blew out UC San Diego
18-2. In the semi-final game, their 10-2 victory against UC Santa
Barbara gave all the indications of a sweep as they entered the
championship game against Cal. The Bruins had beaten the Golden
Bears 11-4 in San Diego just weeks ago.
However, Cal came on strong from the start. The Bears scored six
goals compared to UCLA’s two by the end of the third quarter. The
Bruins rallied to make up the point deficit and, with five seconds
left in the game, freshman Kristin Guerin put one in to tie it
up.
In overtime, Cal had the first goal, but Mandy McAloon was able
to tie the game again at the last second of the three-minute
overtime.
Then came the sudden death period where whoever scores first
wins. Over eight minutes, both teams had a couple of attempts and
misses, and Cal finally put an end to the game with a goal.
"We were sluggish on the offense," said UCLA head coach Guy
Baker. "We only had two goals going into the last quarter, but by
the fourth quarter, the team was able to get going and do what it
was supposed to do."
One factor that played in the struggle against Cal is the Bruins
missed a key player, junior Catherine von Schwarz, due to a
practice-related injury. But Baker said he didn’t want to use that
as a scapegoat to explain what happened in that final game.
"Catherine is such an intricate part of the team, but by no
means am I making excuses for her being out. It’s a good experience
for the team to go on despite an injury and I’m proud of the
comeback. All good teams are able to stay in the game through
difficulties and we had our chances to win it. We just didn’t get
it done and Cal did a good job."
With their first loss of the season, and first loss in 38 games,
the Bruins are 9-1 so far this season. This team has only lost
three times since 1996, and it holds a 69-3 history for the past
two and a half seasons. Ironically, all of their losses were to
Cal.
Approaching Thursday’s game against USC, Baker anticipates a
more fired-up team.
"This group has been very successful, and this doesn’t happen
very often," Baker said. "I think it will get their concentration
and determination higher."