The Bruins emerged without a scratch from their first true test of the season.
No. 1 UCLA men’s water polo (5-0) defeated No. 10 Pacific (3-2) 13-11 on Friday afternoon at Eberhardt Aquatics Complex in Stockton, California. The victory was head coach Adam Wright’s 400th career win. The Bruins added two more top-20 wins in Saturday’s sweep of the Aggie Roundup at Schaal Aquatics Center in Davis, besting No. 6 UC Davis (7-2) 14-10 and No. 19 Santa Clara (4-1) 13-8.
UCLA Athletics did not provide media availability with the team’s athletes or coach.
Friday’s matchup against Pacific was UCLA’s narrowest game of the season. Though UCLA never trailed, it tied the score three times in the first half before fifth-year defender Jack Merrill gave the squad its largest lead of the game in the third quarter off a power-play conversion to make it 7-4.
Senior utility Ben Liechty added his third hat trick of the season, alongside one assist. Three other Bruins – utilities fifth-year Ben Larsen and freshman Luka Gladović and junior attacker Bode Brinkema – joined him in netting multiple goals. Brinkema also tallied a game-high four assists.
Utility Borisz Kasa-Gal led the Tigers with a game-high four goals on nine shots. The Bruins took 31 shots compared to the Tigers’ 27. On the defensive side, fifth-year goalkeeper Griffen Price matched his performance in last Saturday’s contest against Bucknell. The San Carlos, California, local tallied eight saves and held Pacific’s offense to 11 goals, its lowest output of the season.
UC Davis opened the first quarter Saturday morning with four goals compared to UCLA’s two. The Bruins trailed 5-2 in the second stanza before ending the first half tied 6-6. A third-stanza goal from freshman utility Tristan Tucker – assisted by Larsen – made the score 7-6, switching the lead in UCLA’s favor for the first time in the matchup.
UCLA broke apart the scoring in the third quarter, notching five goals while limiting the Aggies to just one. Fifth-year attacker Frederico Jucá Carsalade gave UCLA its largest lead of the game so far at 9-7. The Bruins entered the last stanza with an 11-7 advantage off junior attacker Ryder Dodd’s first hat trick of the season and sophomore defender Jackson Harlan’s first goal of 2026.
Dodd was the scoring leader in Saturday’s first contest, earning a season-high four goals. He was the first Bruin to score in the game and assisted one of two third-quarter tiebreakers. Sophomore goalkeeper Harper Gardner recorded 10 saves in his third collegiate game – the best performance from any Bruin goalkeeper this season.
The Bruins’ final outing of the Aggie Roundup ended with their largest margin of victory this weekend. UCLA started out dominant, beginning with a 3-0 lead and ending the first half up 7-3.
Senior center Marcell Szécsi recorded a hat trick in the first half alone. Gladović, with a hat trick of his own, and Liechty, with two goals, rounded out the Bruins’ multigoal scorers. Liechty continued his streak of scoring two or more goals in each contest this season, though Dodd snapped his 32-game streak of scoring in each of his appearances.
Across the three-game stretch, the Bruins scored a combined 40 goals. Twenty-seven were scored by returners, while 13 were scored by newcomers. Liechty and Dodd placed first and third among Bruin scorers during this stretch at seven and five goals, respectively, while Gladović was second with six.
The Bruins’ next three matchups are all against top-15 opponents. The undefeated squad will take on No. 13 UC Irvine (7-1) on Friday before playing at home for the first time this season on Saturday against No. 13 UC Santa Barbara (9-4) and No. 15 Loyola Marymount (4-0) at the UCLA Mini Invite.
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