Thursday, April 23, 1998
Loss unites players at season’s end
WATERPOLO: UCLA faces qualifying in wake of former player’s
death
By Steve Kim
Daily Bruin Staff
"Hopefully, we can get a little sharper," UCLA head coach Guy
Baker said. "There are certain steps we try to follow, and we
should be able to play better as the season goes along."
There are only two tournaments left in the season. For this one,
the western regional qualifying tournament at Stanford, the Bruins
are honing their water polo skills in preparation for the national
championship.
UCLA takes off to Palo Alto to play UC Davis and UCSD Friday. If
they win those two preliminary games, which is very likely for this
No. 1 ranked team, they are guaranteed a spot in the national
championship. And if they make the tournament final, they’ll be
granted the No. 1 seed at the national.
But the Bruins are not expecting to just get by and make it,
they believe they’re going to win the regional.
Everyone has the national title in mind, but no one’s saying
anything until they get there by playing well this weekend.
"We haven’t really discussed or talked about the championship,"
Baker said. "We just talked about the regional, and we used the old
cliche, ‘one game a time.’"
Sophomore playmaker Serela Mansur said "We’re not going to back
down even if we know we’re almost guaranteed a spot in the
championship. We’re still going to go out there and (remember) who
we are against the rest of the field."
Just as the team was building its momentum for late season,
tragic news of former UCLA water polo player Jim Toring halted them
early in the week. As a young team, many didn’t know Toring. But
the whole water polo community was affected by the loss.
"We’ve had less time to plan for practices, and we’ve been
throwing them unexpected things out of the blue, but the girls have
been really good about handling it," said assistant coach Adam
Krikorian. "Just getting out there with the team helps us as
coaches from thinking too much about all that’s happened this
week."
"I know it’s gotten some of us down, but we’re trying to stick
together through it all," added Mansur. "It was really hard but
we’re trying to look on the bright side."
As tough as the whole situation is, coaches have been concerned
about not taking anything away from the women’s team. The Bruins
are having a near-perfect season so far, and they want to keep it
that way as they approach the final two tournaments of the
season.
"It always gets exciting towards the end of the year," junior
defender Katie Tenenbaum said. "Beginning of the year, practices
just seemed longer but now I think everyone’s more excited, and
we’re all training well."
"We’re going to go over there this weekend and fine tune," she
continued. "Yeah, we’re ready to go."