PATIL ARMENIAN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Senior
Brian Brown and the Bruins won this weekend’s
tournament. UCLA 11 USC 9
By Rekha Rao
Daily Bruin Contributor
For the first time in history, the UCLA men’s water polo
team succeeded in winning the championship game of the Northern
California Tournament, finding their way into Sunday’s final
game against USC by beating UC Santa Cruz, Pepperdine, and
California throughout the weekend.
UCLA reached the final of this tournament the last two years,
but lost to UC Irvine in ’98 and to USC last year.
This year was a different story. With a seven-game winning
streak coming into the event, the confidence of the No. 1 Bruins
was strong.
“This is the first time we have ever won this tournament,
and it was our motivation going into it. We accomplished our
goal,” said co-head coach Adam Krikorian.
On Saturday, the Bruins beat their first two opponents in the
NorCal Tournament.
UCLA defeated No. 16 UC Santa Cruz 16-3 in the first game. True
freshman Albert Garcia led the Bruins with four goals against the
Slugs. Following Garcia, seniors Adam Wright and Andy Bailey, and
junior Alfonso Tucay and sophomore Kyle Baumgarner all scored
twice.
“That was the first time we have ever played UC Santa
Cruz. It was a nice early morning game for us,” said senior
Brian Brown.
The Bruins showed a strong opening in the first half, scoring
seven goals, and continued to play well in the second, scoring nine
more goals.
UCLA also beat No. 8 Pepperdine 10-3. The Bruins did not allow
the Waves a single goal in the first half and entered the third
quarter with a
6-0 lead. Senior Sean Kern led the Bruins with three goals.
Sophomore goalie Brandon Brooks had 14 saves during the first
two games, eight against UC Santa Cruz and six against
Pepperdine.
The semifinal game against California on Sunday morning resulted
in the tenth straight win for the Bruins. They beat the Bears
9-4.
“We came out and played a really good first half,”
said senior Andy Bailey. “It was a really good all-around
team effort. All six players had a chance to score.”
Then came the championship game and this Bruin team finally made
UCLA history by beating the No. 3 USC Trojans 11-9.
“I thought we did a good job. We got off to a great start.
We played very well in the first half, in both ends of the
pool,” Krikorian said.
In the first half, the Bruins outscored the Trojans, 8-3. But
the tide turned on the Bruins in the second as USC made an attempt
to come back and outscored UCLA 6-3.
“In the second half of the game, we played not to lose
instead of playing to win,” Krikorian said. “At the end
they had a couple key goals, but we held them off.”
The MPSF conference tournament comes at the end of the month and
the Bruins will again take on many of the ranked teams they took on
at the NorCal tournament.
“This tournament puts us in a great position for our
season outlook. We are head-to-head with USC right now,”
Krikorian said.