MEN’S WATERPOLO PREVIEW vs. Today, Oct. 26 Noon
Sunset Rec.
By Rekha Rao
Daily Bruin Contributor
The top-ranked UCLA men’s water polo team, fresh off an
11-game winning streak, will play at home for the first time in
three weeks, as it takes on neighbor Loyola Marymount on Saturday
afternoon.
“This might be one of their better programs. They improve
every year. They are a solid team,” co-head coach Adam
Krikorian said.
Last weekend, UCLA traveled up north and took first place in the
Northern California Tournament for the first time in school
history.
UCLA led their way to the top spot at the tournament by
defeating UC Santa Cruz and Pepperdine on Saturday. On Sunday, they
beat Cal in the semifinals and USC in the final game.
The Lions placed 11th at the NorCal Tournament, defeating UC
Davis and Cal Baptist, but falling to Stanford and UC Santa
Barbara.
The Lions’ key player is left-handed sophomore Kevin Witt,
who was on the U.S. junior national team. He could pose a problem
for the Bruins.
“We are playing really well right now, but still trying to
get some things done,” UCLA senior Blake Wellen said.
Although their confidence is riding high on the recent wave of
wins, the Bruins still have to work through each game and play
consistently for each win.
“Most of the guys on the team are experienced and smart
enough to take our recent success the right way,” Krikorian
said.
The Bruins feel as though there are key components of the game
that they can easily work on to have even more success.
“I think we still need to play better as a team.
Defensively we are solid. There are some areas offensively that we
could improve on and play better,” Krikorian said. “We
are trying to get everyone playing at their best. We have had a lot
of good players playing well, but not all together.”
Many of the Bruins have never played against the Lions, but they
do not fear the upcoming game.
“It’s not hard playing a team you have never played
before. We have seen them before,” senior playmaker Brian
Brown said.
The LMU match should help the Bruins set up for the upcoming
weeks of tough opponents.
“The season outlook looks great. We knew that it would be
a tough three weeks on the road with USC and the NorCal
tournament,” Krikorian said. “We are letting the team
get physically and mentally refreshed.”
The Bruins are constantly trying to improve their game.
“We are trying to fine tune a lot of things, including our
conditioning,” Wellen said.
Record wise, UCLA leads the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation
conference with an average of 9.71 goals per game. They also allow
only 5.29 goals per game. UCLA has five regular season games left,
all playing at home.
Besides traveling continuously for three weeks, the Bruins have
had to deal with ailing health from members of the team.
“We have been trying to get Sean Kern healthy all weekend
and hopefully getting him up to 100 percent. I don’t think
that we have seen our best game out of many these guys,”
Krikorian said.
“We have to improve on all the fine little things, and
then I think we will be in good shape for the weeks ahead,”
Wellen said.
The Bruins play at noon on Saturday at the Sunset Recreation
Center.