Three weekends ago, UC Santa Barbara was the talk of the men’s water polo world.
After taking down Stanford and UCLA in the same weekend at their own SoCal Tournament, No. 2 UCSB turned the heads of many who did not expect the Gauchos to be a top-four contender.
This Saturday, the No. 3 Bruins (17-2, 1-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) will test the legitimacy of the Gauchos (14-4, 0-1) in a rematch of UCLA’s most disappointing loss of the season.
In its last meeting with UCSB, the team lacked focus early, falling behind 8-4 as the whistle blew for halftime.
The Bruins mounted an impressive 5-1 scoring differential to draw the score even after three quarters, but were unable to close, giving the Gauchos their biggest win of the season.
A crucial aspect of UCLA’s Saturday game plan will be to stop its defensive mistakes early and focus on each play individually as the game develops.
“Coach has been really focusing on going into the game and looking at each play as it goes, taking it one play at a time,” said sophomore attacker Chris Fahlsing. “That’s been a big key for us when we’ve been down in the past is just taking a situation in that moment.”
Emerging victorious from Saturday’s game against UCSB would mean a 2-0 start for UCLA in MPSF play against some of the conference’s most difficult competition, having beaten Cal two weekends ago.
A hungry Gaucho offense will look to feed off the home crowd energy to curb any mounting Bruin momentum and secure its second straight Bruin upset.
“They play with a lot of passion,” said junior defender Chris Wendt. “We had trouble with them the last time we played so we know we definitely have to match their intensity and lock down our defense.”
Bye The Way
Following a road win over Cal to open up MPSF play, UCLA experienced its only bye week of the season. Rather than allowing for physical recovery in a week of practice, the Bruins upped their intensity and allowed for team chemistry to bud from collective hardship during a stretch of difficult conditioning.
“When you work hard ““ and we’ve put in a lot of work these last 10 days-plus ““ it’s always interesting to see which way the group will go,” said coach Adam Wright. “As you tire, the way you don’t want them to go is to start chipping at each other, and a positive thing is that we haven’t done that.”